Posted on 05/28/2006 8:02:52 AM PDT by ncountylee
RICHMOND, Va. -- The Richmond Times-Dispatch said Saturday it fired a reporter for fabricating part of a story and has begun investigating his other work.
Paul Bradley, 51, who worked in the newspaper's northern Virginia bureau, was dismissed Friday, the newspaper reported.
The article, published May 17, was intended to gather reaction in Herndon to President Bush's speech on immigration.
Bradley's fabrications, the Times-Dispatch said, included an interview that did not occur with the director of a center for day laborers and the misrepresentation that he had visited the center by using a Herndon dateline.
Managing editor Louise C. Seals said the director of the center alerted the newspaper to the fabrications.
"What I did was wrong and an indefensible journalistic sin," Bradley said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. "I cut corners to put some color into a story and I am now paying a dear price."
Bradley apologized to readers but said "the punishment far exceeds the crime."
A description in the story of 50 workers sitting at picnic tables waiting for work was taken from The Washington Post, the Richmond paper said.
In his statement, Bradley said the offending material amounted to two paragraphs in a 22-paragraph story. He also denied using Post material to describe the job center.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
: )
Taking his punishment as one would expect from a liberal....whining.
'Journalistic standards' is becoming more of an oxymoron every minute.
"What I did was wrong and an indefensible journalistic sin,"
"the punishment far exceeds the crime."
Girly boy.
"I only cheated a little bit. It was almost nothing."
There!
Media shenanigans ~ping~.
To a leftist, all that is necessary is "WHERE HIS HEART LIES and that HE IS SORRY." So ANY punishement would be considered too extreme.
Wait awhile and his abuse as a child will enter the arena of excuses, if that fails he could always try to come out of the closet and cry 'homophobia'.
In his statement, Bradley said the offending material amounted to two paragraphs in a 22-paragraph story. He also denied using Post material to describe the job center.
The paper says it was plagiarism, he says it's fabricated "color". Which was it?
Yeah, and what's so different between what he did and what most other journalists do weekly for the nation's leading print papers?
"the punishment far exceeds the crime."
What else would you do with someone in journalism that commits an indefensible sin but fire them?
He was stupid. He named a specific source who was able to drop a dime and state ..."he never talked to me." National MSM would use unnamed source and still be on agenda and working.
Only that it's policy with them and they get away with it.
More "fake but accurate" reporting? CBS led the way!
Thanks for posting this.
Does anyone have the article with his lies?
99 % of the lying Marxist pseudo journalists would be fired if their bosses enforced a no BS/lying/spinning policy on stories about GW and his cabinet members.
The Jason Blair syndrome runs deep in the dinosaur fish wraps.
Thanks for the ping. Lunatic liberals pretending to be reporters are not able to document what really happens when it comes to President Bush.
I have so many stories about dealing with the press, (including dating for 2 years a woman who went from TV reporter to having her own (with co-hosts) local morning TV show to local news anchor). These people are shockingly unconcerned with actual facts. It's all about what will get THEM (the reporters) the lead stories, headlines, etc.
To our readers
Richmond Times-Dispatch May 27, 2006
A Times-Dispatch article published May 17 about the reaction in Herndon to President Bush's speech on immigration reported a fabricated interview and portrayed a scene at a job center there as though the reporter had visited it. He had not.
Northern Virginia bureau reporter Paul Bradley did not interview Bill Threlkeld, site director for Project Hope and Harmony, as reported in the article.
Bradley interviewed the other sources quoted in the story but did not go to the town that day, as the dateline led readers to believe.
A sentence in the story that described 50 workers sitting at picnic tables waiting for work was taken from a Washington Post story reporting on the town election this month. A job center for immigrants was a major issue in the election.
Also, the pavilion that the story described as protecting the workers from the elements has been planned but not built.
Bradley was dismissed yesterday as a Times-Dispatch employee. A further examination will continue with an outside consultant reviewing his work over recent years.
Integrity is a core value at The Times-Dispatch, and anything less in gathering and reporting the news is unacceptable.
The Editors
"I thought it was a waste of time," said George Taplin, head of the local chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group dedicated to curbing illegal immigration. "I think the speech was given mainly to get [Bush]'s political base back on board." On that point, Taplin agrees with Mukit Hossain, an immigrant activist who helped set up the day-labor center in Herndon. Taplin's group also is adamant about not granting illegal immigrants amnesty. People like [Walter Tejada] said deporting all of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants just isn't practical.
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