So it appears the allegations — many of them made by former Since the discovery of massive journalistic fraud involving plagiarism and fabrication by the New York Times’ Jayson Blair, new revelations have emerged about similar offenses by journalists at other prominent newspapers. Underscoring that journalism is as fallible as any other endeavor, these additional cases of dereliction will hopefully reinforce editors’ willingness to address reader concerns about error and distortion. The following examples of serious misconduct by journalists have recently come to light. USA TODAY – Jack Kelley Among a number of stories now shown to be marred by outright invention was a particularly lurid piece by USA Today Jack Kelley from September 2001. A scathing report about a gang of Jewish Orthodox thugs who terrorized Palestinians in Hebron, the article can still be found on anti-Israel Web sites. Entitled "Israeli Extremists Take Revenge on Palestinians," the story begins: After a quick prayer, Avi Shapiro and 12 other Jewish settlers put on their religious skullcaps, grabbed their semi-automatic rifles and headed toward Highway 60. There, they pushed boulders, stretched barbed wire and set tires afire to form a barricade that, they said, would stop even the biggest of Palestinian taxis. Then they waited for a vehicle to arrive. As they crouched in a ditch beside the road, Shapiro, the leader of the group, gave the settlers orders: Surround any taxi, "open fire" and kill as many of the "blood-sucking Arab" passengers as possible. "We are doing what (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon promised but has failed to do: drive these sons of Arab whores from the land of Israel," said Shapiro, 42, who moved here with his wife and four children three years ago from Brooklyn. "If he won't get rid of the Muslim filth, then we will." The article is presented by Palestinian propagandists as an example of victimization of innocent Palestinians by Israelis and as a counterbalance to historical accounts of how Hebron’s Jews were massacred by their Arab neighbors in 1929. The problem is, the story is invented. Author Jack Kelley apparently fabricated the character of Avi Shapiro and the damning accounts of Israeli cruelty toward Palestinians. When the article was published, immediate questions were raised about its authenticity. Who, for example, were the supposedly Orthodox Jewish protagonists of Kelley’s story who, according to his first sentence, donned skullcaps only after prayers? Orthodox Jews wear skullcaps all day long and even non-Orthodox don skullcaps for prayers. David Wilder, Hebron resident and spokesman for the Jewish Hebron community sent a detailed rebuttal to the publisher and editors of USA Today, requesting that they publish his letter and address the points he raised. Foremost in his rebuttal was the compelling fact that no one by the name of "Avi Shapiro" nor anyone fitting Kelley’s description resided in Hebron. The editorial staff of USA Today, however, chose to ignore Wilder’s request, did not investigate Kelley’s sources, and never published the rebuttal. Fast forward 20 months: an anonymous complaint from a USA Today staff member in May 2003 about other articles written by Kelley prompted the newspaper to check out a sampling of his pieces. Kelley attempted to mislead the investigators and was forced to resign in January 2004. Only then was a new, more extensive analysis done of over 700 stories Kelley had written since 1993. This investigation revealed evidence that Kelley fabricated several articles, plagiarized quotes, lied in speeches and attempted to deceive investigators. Among Kelley’s apparent inventions are accounts about spending an evening with Egyptian terrorists in 1997, visiting a terrorist crossing point on the Pakistan-Afghani border in 2002, passing a Palestinian suicide bomber who subsequently detonated himself in a Jerusalem pizza shop in 2001, joining a hunt for Osama Bin Laden in 2003, and meeting a Jewish settler named Avi Shapiro who victimized Palestinians. Investigators traveled to Israel to try to locate the article’s protagonist, Avi Shapiro. They were unable to do so, nor were they able to verify Kelley’s description of events. Confirming Mr. Wilder’s 2001 letter, Israeli authorities found no record of Avi Shapiro or anyone fitting Kelley’s description. Neither the Israeli Police nor the Palestinian State Information Service had any account of complaints about the incidents alleged by Kelley. According to the Israeli Government Press Office Director Daniel Seaman, Israel’s secret service, Shin Bet, also discounted Kelley’s account. USA Today editors are to be commended for their rigorous investigation of Kelley’s work. The question remains, however, why they waited two and a half years before following up on legitimate and obvious concerns communicated by the public? Chicago Tribune– Uli Schmetzer Uli Schmetzer, a freelance writer for the Chicago Tribune, was recently fired when the newspaper discovered that he had fabricated the name and occupation of a man he says he interviewed. On March 3, the Tribune issued the following editorial note: In a Feb. 24 article from Australia about rioting after the death of an Aborigine boy, the following quote was attributed to a Graham Thorn, identified as a psychiatrist: "These people always complain. They want it both ways–their way and our way." "They want to live in our society and be respected, yet they won’t work. They steal, they rob and they get drunk. And they don’t respect the laws." Following an e-mail complaint from a reader in Australia, Tribune editors questioned Uli Schmetzer, the freelance writer of the story. Schmetzer, who served for 16 years as a Tribune foreign correspondent before retiring from the staff two years ago, admitted that both the name and the occupation of the speaker were made up. He maintains that the quotation was uttered by an Australian man of his acquaintance. Fabrication of any sort in a news story is a violation of the fundamental ethical principals of journalism and simply is not tolerated at the Chicago Tribune. Schmetzer has been terminated as a contract writer with the newspaper. The Tribune apologizes to our readers for this breach of trust. It should be noted that this is not the first time that Schmetzer has taken liberties with a quote. In a Nov. 17, 2000 article, Schmetzer, then a foreign correspondent for the Tribune, took an Israeli soldier’s quote out of critical qualifying context in an apparent effort to build the case that Israel was callously acting with excessive force against Palestinians ("War of Attrition Claims Beloved Medic"). He wrote: Last month the Jerusalem Post reported Israel had trained four battalions for urban warfare in mock-up Palestinian villages. A story by Ariel [sic] O’Sullivan quoted a sargeant named Raz, a 20-year-old sharpshooter in the Nashon battalion, as saying: "I shot two people in the knees. It’s supposed to break their bones and neutralize them but not kill them. How did I feel? Well, actually, I felt pretty satisfied with myself." What Schmetzer omitted in his article was the end of the quote which completely changed the understanding of Raz’s statement: "I felt I could do what I was trained to do, and it gave me a lot of self-confidence to think that if we get into a real war situation I’d be able to defend my comrades and myself." (Arieh O’Sullivan’s Oct. 27, 2000, jpost) The Chicago Tribune commendably printed a correction Dec. 11, 2000 regarding Raz’s incomplete quote. As Schmetzer’s newest misrepresentation concerning the death of the Aborigine boy comes to light, one wonders how many other unexposed distortions lie in the shadows of his nearly two-decades-old journalism career? Conclusion Readers, trust your intuition. If details appear incongruous or implausible, raise your concerns with the editor or ombudsman of the media outlet. If you do not receive satisfactory follow-up, send your concerns to media critics such as Fox News Warch, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, etc. and consult CAMERA for additional suggestions.
colleagues — were spot on after all. Jack Kelley, at one time USA
Today’s star reporter, had this rather unfortunate habit of fabricating
events and, apparently, entire stories.
In a detailed account, USA Today recently announced to the
world that its internal investigation had left no doubt that Kelley was
a fabulist of colossal proportions. Included among his concoctions were
a piece he did on a group of hate-filled Israeli settlers, led by one “Avi
Shapiro” — whom Kelley described as essentially lusting after Arab
blood — and one on the 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro bombing, which
Kelley claimed to have witnessed first hand.
Joseph Schick, who on his blog The Zionist Conspiracy
(www.jschick.blogspot.com) has been on top of the Kelley story since
the first glimmers began appearing in the press, tells the Monitor that
“Kelley’s piece about the settlers was no less than a blood libel.”
The story, Schick continues, “reinforced all of the false stereotypes
about residents of Yesha, and is part of the reason why murder of
Jews outside of the Green Line is accepted as some sort of legitimate
‘resistance.’ A reader of that article — which appeared on USA
Today’s front page — would have no reason not to equate Jewish
settlers with Hamas.”
Arabs, Schick recalls, had “complained about Kelley’s Sbarro
piece, which they saw as being sympathetic to Israel. That probably
motivated Kelley to fabricate the Avi Shapiro article, which was
published just a few weeks later, so that he would appear to be even-
handed, reporting on violent fanatics on both sides. Of course, while
both the Sbarro and Shapiro articles were fakes, the Sbarro bombing
really happened, while Shapiro and his twelve cohorts are all
fictional.”
Kelley, says Schick, is far from alone in the media when it comes
to portraying a moral equivalence between Palestinians and Israelis.
“They may not fabricate events, but most of the U.S. media are as
guilty of demonizing the residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza as was
Kelley.
“Their motivations are generally not sinister — they simply are
trying to be neutral, so they balance criticism of suicide bombings
with criticism of ‘settlers.’
“When challenged, they often cannot articulate the reasons for
their contempt. Obviously settlements are controversial and not
immune from criticism, but the way they and their residents are
depicted is appalling.”
Schick notes that he was convinced of Kelley’s culpability well
before USA Today made it official.
“When Kelley was forced to resign in January,” he says, “and the
paper announced it would investigate his work, I closely examined
both the Sbarro and Shapiro articles and immediately concluded that
each was phony, as common sense suggested.”
Schick points out that when the settler piece was published,
“David Wilder of the Hebron community insisted that Shapiro didn’t
exist and the reported incident never happened, but he was ignored
by USA Today.”
While it may understandable that USA Today initially stood by
its star reporter, says Schick, “it remains curious that even after
Kelley’s resignation, his scandal received much less attention than the
ones involving Jayson Blair at The New York Times and Stephen
Glass at The New Republic.
“After all, Kelley was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2002 and a five
time nominee, and therefore a much more prominent reporter than
either Blair or Glass, and his journalistic crimes of making up stories,
plagiarizing articles published elsewhere, and scheming to cover up
his actions were at least as serious as theirs. Only Howard Kurtz of
the Washington Post has offered significant coverage. Most likely —
in contrast to Blair and Glass who were in their 20’s — Kelley was
well known and well liked in the journalistic world and therefore
immune from serious examination and criticism by his peers.”
http://www.jewishpress.com/news_article.asp?article=3578
March 25, 2004
by Ricki Hollander, Tamar Sternthal
Journalists Behaving Badly
Jack Kelley: Hevron´s Spokesman Uncovered Him Long Ago
13:42 Mar 23, '04 / 1 Nisan 5764
On Sept. 4, 2001, Kelley wrote an article in USA Today entitled, "Israeli extremists take revenge on Palestinians." Hevron spokesman David Wilder, in a letter at the time to USA Today publishers and editors, called the article "anti-Israel, anti-Semitic propaganda [that] is so full of lies and is so inaccurate..." Wilder wrote afterwards that he never received a response to his letter.
Wilder wrote, after checking for several hours, "There is no one with the name Avi Shapiro who lives in Hebron, Kiryat Arba, Gush Etzion or Efrat... To the best of my knowledge, [he] does not really exist..." Wilder acknowledged that local Jews participated in roadblocks during times when "scores of Jews were being murdered by Arab terrorists in drive-by shootings... There was an attempt made to hinder Arab traffic, so as to save Jewish lives. However, at no time were any 'orders' ever given to 'open fire and kill...'"
Wilder also noted several factual errors in Kelley's report, such as writing that "at least 119 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group" - when in fact B'Tselem reported that only "eleven Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli civilians." For another example, Wilder notes Kelley's outright "lie" that "in July, Jewish vigilantes killed three Palestinians, including a 3-month-old boy, in Nablus."
Even more telling, in light of the ongoing investigation against Kelley, Wilder notes that Kelley's audio and written reports contradict themselves: "In his audio report, Kelley accuses 'settler teenagers, many of whom are from Brooklyn' of beating [a certain] man and then setting him on fire. In this written report, Kelley says that the man was beaten and set ablaze by Israeli soldiers. Why does Kelley contradict himself in the two reports? How does he know that the supposed 'attackers' are from Brooklyn?"
"In conclusion," wrote David Wilder over two and a half years ago, "we expect that Kelley's tenure with the newspaper will be terminated immediately and that USA Today will not only publish this rebuttal, but will also print an apology for slandering our community
KURTZ: ... reporter, compared to Jack Kelley, who was the biggest star on USA Today's staff. If it is the case that it is at least as bad and probably worse than Blair, why is Jack Kelley's getting just barely a fraction of the media attention?
LANE: That's a very good question that I've wondered about. And I think the only answer I can come up with is one is The New York Times, America's number one newspaper of record, et cetera. And the other...
KURTZ: That's won all these Pulitzers.
LANE: Exactly. And I think it's really unfortunate, because I think over the years USA Today has invested and worked very hard to improve and become a very fine newspaper. And, unfortunately, this incident is only going to set that effort back. And it's going to harm all of Jack Kelley's colleagues at the paper.
KURTZ: Another factor, it seems to me, is that the Blair drama set off at the Times a huge, newsroom struggle, which ultimately led to the removal...
(CROSSTALK)
LORCH: Yes. And nothing much has happened.
KURTZ: That doesn't seem to be happening at USA Today.
LANE: Well, there was a kind of effort to sweep it under the rug and not search for all the underlying causes in management and the rest. I think USA Today, in some ways, was a little bit more aggressive in rooting it out.
KURTZ: But isn't there also the question of race? I mean, there was a whole affirmative action debate about Jayson Blair?
LORCH: There could be, probably. I mean, its just been -- Jack Kelley has been swept under the rug. If I talk to people who aren't journalists, they haven't even heard about him.
KURTZ: Because it doesn't get much coverage on television.