Publisher’s Note: The publisher has had no role in editing this essay, which is published as the writer submitted it with the intention of publication in BEACONS.
By Jessica Collins
In journalism, there is one golden rule: tell the truth, no matter what. Most journalists live by that oath, and do tell the truth every day. However, throughout the history of journalism, there have been many examples of writers and reporters who have betrayed the trust of readers and fellow journalists. From Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass to college students, and virtual unknowns, all types of journalists can fall to these journalistic crimes. Oftentimes, it is new, young journalists with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. However, it’s been seen that journalists of all ages, experience and talent can plagiarize or fabricate their stories. So, the question is: why? Why do good journalists go bad? There’s a plethora of reasons, or excuses, as to why journalists commit these crimes. These reasons, however, do not excuse the massive amounts of trust taken away from the public, the publisher, and the journalism field as a whole.
First, let’s define plagiarism. Plagiarism, according to “Avoiding Plagiarism and Fabrication,” an online course by the Poynter Institute, is using someone else’s work and passing it off as your own. Obviously, journalists are allowed to use other’s work and research, but they must give credit when credit is due, which is always. Plagiarism can be intentional, or happen by accident, but either way, it is still plagiarism and careers can and have ended because of it. Whether or not there should be a difference in punishment based on intention is up to the public and the publishers. In many cases, plagiarism tends to be used by younger, inexperienced journalists, who are also more likely to be punished by these mistakes. When older journalists commit the same acts, they are often given just a slap on the wrist, when a young journalist would be shunned from the profession. The same is also seen with a gender and race discrepancy.
These unfair and inconsistent punishments in the journalism community can cause mistrust with publications for their workers, their readers, and the general public. If the punishment for serious journalistic crimes varies every time, how can you be sure you are reading the truth? According to Gallup’s “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Edges Down to 41%” by Megan Brenan, the downfall of trust in the journalism community has been going down, with the record low being 32% of Americans’ trusting media in 2016. Although this has a big connection with the 2016 presidential election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, it still shows that nowhere near a majority of Americans trust the media a fair amount. These levels have gone drastically down since Gallup first measured the public’s media trust in 1972, with the level being 68%. There is also the question of political differences and their effects on the trust of major media. Without a doubt, there is. Democrats are significantly more likely to greatly trust in the media, while Republicans have a low overall average of trust in journalism. In 2019, Democrats’ trust in mass media was at 69%, while Republicans’ was at 15%.
Distrust in the media is not new, and for good reason. Some of the most influential papers in the infancy of journalism were built off of sensationalism and exaggerations of the truth, to push a certain agenda. So it is no surprise that these fears of manipulation by the mass media are still so present in modern day. The Smithsonian magazine’s “The Great Moon Hoax Was Simply a Sign of Its Time” by Sarah Zielinksi details one of the most infamous cases of a “fake news” story, all the way back in 1835. Now although the moon story was simply a case of fiction, not being passed off as real news, the readers still read it that way. They believed everything they read as fact, because that is the point of newspapers, right? Although the publishing of an early sci-fi novel was probably not the best idea for Benjamin Day’s New York Sun, it got readers interested, and that was more important to the Sun than telling the truth about what the literature was. There’s also been specific cases of journalists purposely using untrue or fabricated stories, to push a certain agenda, like Louis Seibold and Walter Duranty. Louis Seibold, according to “Fakery in American Journalism” by Thomas Fleming from the History News Network, was a reporter for the New York World, who was invited by President Woodrow Wilson’s wife to interview the president after he suffered cerebral thrombosis and was in almost a vegetative state. This condition was hidden from the American public, and Wilson’s wife invited Seibold to cover how “well” the President had been doing, as publicity for his possible third term. Seibold went along with the lies to get a big story for the World, which he did. So big in fact, that he won a Pulitzer Prize for that very interview with President Wilson. He still holds it posthumously, to this day. Walter Duranty, on the other hand, had a whole new level of deception. Duranty worked for the New York Times during Joseph Stalin’s reign in the Soviet Union, and in some ways, he worked for the dictator too. According to “Pulitzer Winning Lies” by Arnold Beichman, Duranty purposely printed things that denied the magnitude of the famine that was taking place in Ukraine at the time. He repeatedly said there was no famine in Russia at that time, and any reports of one was propaganda against the Soviet Union, and even went as far to say that “There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation, but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition” in 1933. Again, the Pulitzer Prize committee slipped up, and gave a fabulist the field’s highest honor. Duranty, according to Voice of America News’ article “Controversy Brewing Over 1932 Pulitzer Prize,” was awarded the Pulitzer in 1932 for those very sets of stories he wrote as the Moscow correspondent for the New York Times. Duranty lived in Moscow during Stalin’s regime, and was the main wire to the Times for news about the Soviet Union. But what do you do when that information is tainted? The likely answers as to why Duranty deliberately lied about the deadly famine was because either he was forced to by the Soviet government, or he believed it himself and supported the regime of Stalin, and acted as his buffer to the United States. Either way, these early examples of fabrication show that the media isn’t always the truth tellers they set out to be, and although it is just a few bad apples, there are plenty of examples throughout history that bury that golden rule in the dirt.
Janet Cooke is the most infamous example of the ills of journalism. Cooke was a young writer for the Washington Post in the early 1980s, and was a confident and willing one. In September of 1980, Cooke’s story “Jimmy’s World” opened with the now infamous line: “Jimmy is 8 years old and a third generation heroin addict.” Cooke went on to describe an unfortunate life for a young boy and his family, plagued by addiction and incompetent parenting. However, it was soon discovered that none of it was true. According to Cass Peterson in the Washington Post article “Post Writer Wins Pulitzer Prize for Story on Child Addict,” Janet Cooke was awarded the highest award in journalism for feature writing in 1981. This article, which is just a rundown of some of the Prize winners, even notes how there was an extensive search for the boy and his family by the police and District of Columbia officials. Just two days later, on April 16, 1981, Cooke’s Pultizer Prize was withdrawn by the committee after she admitted it was all fake. The lies didn’t end there, however. According to “Post Reporter’s Pultizer Prize is Withdrawn” by David A. Maraniss, Cooke admitted that she made up the story, the interviews, and the subjects, but the fictitious “Jimmy” was based on a composite of drug addiction information in the D.C. area, but also had been lying about her education history. She had stated that she had attended Vassar College for her Bachelor’s Degree, and the University of Toledo for her Master’s. Although she did attend both colleges, she only had attended Vassar for her freshman year, and attended Toledo for her Bachelor’s Degree. Cooke immediately resigned after admitting to her lies and fabrication, and is really the first example of a journalist being shunned from their career after their grave mistake. According to “Janet Cooke’s Untold Story” by Howard Kurtz from the Washington Post, in 1996, Cooke was working at an hourly wage retail job, for $6 an hour. In this article, she also explains how her way of thinking was “twisted” because she grew up in a strict patriarchal household where lying was a “survival mechanism.” This is interesting because she understood what she was doing was wrong, and unethical, but she did it anyway, based on instinct. It’s stated later in the piece that she wanted to over perform, as a black reporter. As many papers at the time were hiring minorities as a way to show diversity, Cooke felt that she had to outperform her white colleagues, and she did so by lying, as her instinct had told her. So that brings into question how race had a play in the punishment of Janet Cooke. She was technically not fired, as she resigned herself, but the Pulitzer Prize was withdrawn and awarded to someone else, which is a just punishment. However, what Cooke’s real punishment was her ousting from a possible redemption in the journalism field, where in other cases, journalists who commit similar or worse acts are given a second chance.
That brings us to Stephen Glass. Another whose name constantly pops up in articles describing plagiarism and fabrication. Like Cooke, Glass was a young, promising writer who turned out to be a fabulist. Glass worked at the New Republic in the mid 90s, and was found to have fabricated entirely or just parts of at least 27 stories he wrote and published for the New Republic. According to American Journalism Review’s “Shattered Glass at the New Republic,” by Lori Robertson, Glass was discovered after Adam Penenburg was searching for Glass’ sources when he wanted to do a follow up piece on Jukt Micronics, a totally fabricated tech company birthed from Glass’ mind while writing “Hack Heaven.” After Penenburg could not find any of Glass’ sources, or any proof that that company even existed, he got suspicious and tried to contact Glass himself. When Glass ignored his calls, Penenburg reported it to Chuck Lane, the New Republic editor, who after investigating himself, fired Glass. Glass went further with his deliberate lies, and even made a website for the company, to somewhat cover his tracks, but that didn’t work so well. Glass, however, was well liked around the New Republic, according to “Shattered Glass” by Buzz Bissinger of Vanity Fair, and was always there as a helping hand to colleagues who needed it. Growing up, he was always known as the smart kid, gifted, and that feeling of high expectations carried into his adult life. Much like Cooke, his childhood could have been a big influence into why he did what he did. That same article by Vanity Fair dove into this question, and detailed his high school accomplishments, arguing that Glass was always looking for his parents’ reassurance. This article also is special in this story for another reason, because it was this that inspired the film “Shattered Glass” starring Hayden Christensen, detailing Glass’ story and downfall. After this scandal, in 2003, Glass was doing a book tour for “The Fabulist,” a “fictionalized” novel that was really just a reiteration of his life events. In an interview with CNN, he claims the book captures why a journalist may do what he did, and his excuse was that he wanted to gain the love of the people around him, like friends and family. Glass, after being fired from the publication, went on to quietly continue his law school, and was able to find a job afterwards in that field. Maybe it was just because Janet Cooke was the first huge example of fabrication in modern day, or maybe it’s because of her race, but there is no denying that Glass got off a lot lighter than Cooke did, and for arguably worse acts.
This is not the only example of differences in punishments, possibly based on racial influence, however, Glass and Cooke did not work for the same publication, and were not discovered within the same summer. The case studies of Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe bring with it a coat of uneasiness and a pinch of privilege. In the summer of 1998, the Boston Globe found itself with two unethical journalists on their hands. First in June, Patricia Smith was asked to resign by editor Matthew V. Storin after several stories had been found to have sources that had been fabricated after she could not verify several sources’ existence, according to “Admitting Fabrications, Globe Columnist resigns” by Mark Jurkowitz of the Globe. However, it was well known at the Boston Globe, that veteran Mike Barnicle had long fabricated quotes from multiple sources. So the Globe had an issue of how to deal with these very similar cases, without looking like they were performing favoritism. These questions were brought up when Storin came back to the Globe and knew about both these examples of fabrication, according to “The Globe, columnists, and the search for the truth” by Mark Jurkowitz. Since the Globe itself had not addressed the issues about Barnicle, Storin knew that there could be issues with the light shed on the Smith case. According to “Editorial Observer; The High Price of Repreiving Mike Barnicle,” by Howell Raines of the New York Times, Barnicle, after the Smith controversy and the questions about his own past were brought up to the Globe, decided to use jokes very similar to those from comedian George Carlin, without attribution, in one of his columns. With this, Storin asked for Barnicle’s resignation, but later withdrew, because he felt like the crimes of the two journalists were different enough to warrant different punishments. Raines ends his editorial with a great quote that summarizes this entire situation: “Long after Mr. Barnicle settles back into his column, the historical bottom line of this event will be that a white guy with the right connections got pardoned for offenses that would have taken down a minority or female journalist.” That describes a lot of the cases of plagiarism and fabrication in journalism history. The unfair and wavering levels of punishment between different journalists for the same crimes is confusing, until you look at the main difference between these individuals: their gender and the color of their skin.
The most recent individual widely known for their acts of fabrication in journalism would be Jayson Blair. Blair was a young journalist who worked for the New York Times in the early 2000s. According to the Society of Professional Journalists’ “The Times and Jayson Blair,” he quickly rose through the ranks at the Times, many of his colleagues blamed this on favoritism, “the star system,” and race, with a field desperate for black journalists to exploit. Blair was elaborate in the way he fabricated and plagiarized, he used pictures to describe scenes as if he were there, lifted material from others, and ultimately created scenes and comments that had never happened, according to “Correcting the Record: Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception.” Mostly, he picked from others’ stories and changed the scenes or comments just enough to not be detected, unless someone who was actually there had read it, which was exactly what happened. Blair made the mistake of plagiarizing from one of his former colleagues, Macarena Hernandez. In her article, “He Stole More Than My Words,” Hernandez goes into detail about how she knew Blair had stolen from her. Hernandez had interviewed a Texas mother whose son was the final American soldier missing in Iraq, and used specific details about her home that only someone who had actually been present in the home would have known. Blair took these details without attribution and altered them, just enough to make them false, which in result is both plagiarism and fabrication. This was just one of many examples found of Blair using these unethical tactics to get ahead, and using his personality to gauge connections with his bosses. However, it really does seem like Blair knows he did wrong, given that he apologized for his actions in a talk about ethics at his alma mater, the University of Maryland, saying that “It kills me personally that (my plagiarism and fabrication) damaged the profession.” He acknowledged that his actions hurt people. This would be people like his co-workers, his readers, his editors, his family and the people he stole from. However, Blair somewhat got a redemption arc, even though he had a long history of unethical behavior in journalism, dating back to his time in a student publication, The Diamondback.
So now the question is: who is to blame? Is it the actual writers for succumbing to these easy ways up the ladder? Is it the editors and fact-checkers who don’t catch the untrue writing? Is it the bosses and managers who advise and pressure these journalists, coercing them into a life of lying? Or is it the journalism culture as a whole? In many cases, like stated in Slate’s “The Plagiarist’s Dirty Dozen Excuses” by Jack Shafer, there is almost always the same reasoning behind every fallen journalist's downfall. Some of these include that they were under pressure from editors, they were careless with notes, they are young and inexperienced, and of course, they didn’t mean to plagiarize. There are few professions where a “bad apple” can cause complications for the entire field. Obviously it is “not all journalists,” but there’s just enough to recognze that there is a pattern, and a problem. So we need to look at the common denominator: the culture. According to “Confronting the Culture” by Lori Roberson, the newsroom atmosphere is filled with an overhanging feel of competition, pressure and cheating. Many journalists write because they love to write, and they feel they should be properly recognized for that ability, but always searching for that front page headline is a toxic practice, and only encourages the appeal of fabrication or plagiarism. Another issue with the journalism culture is that journalists may think they will not get punished for their actions, because so many before them haven’t. Especially older, more experienced writers, while they participate in these acts less, they are more likely to not get punished as severely as a new writer. Even so, the young journalists can often sneak their way back into the spotlight, and get a second chance, whether they deserve it or not. (Probably not.) Ruth Shalit, who worked for the New Republic in the late 90s, and was found plagiarizing and was fired. However, just last year, she was given a second chance under the byline Ruth S. Barrett, according to Erik Wemple’s Washington Post article “Ruth Shalit just wrote for the Atlantic. Would readers know it from the byline?” However, a new name did not shed her old ways. The article was retracted a week later, and an apology and editor’s note was issued with the article. In this case, it proves that it may just be a personal problem. But why did Shalit feel the need to do that again? She could have had a legitimate comeback, but threw it all away, because she wanted to fabricate.
It is a gray area. There’s journalists who do it their entire careers, like Jack Kelly of USAToday, or Karen Jeffrey of the Cape Cod Times. Both were discovered late in their careers to have used many fabrications in major stories, like Kelley, or in small, almost insignificant stories, like Jeffrey. There’s also journalists who do it once, and never again. Carl Cameron, of Fox News, fabricated a quote from then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, according to the New York Times, but after that, never had a journalistic ethical problem again. The same goes for Ahmad Shafi, an NPR intern, who was at the event he described, but took language from another article describing the same event, which was common practice in his home country of Afghanistan. Both of these writers continued at their jobs, even though they committed these journalistic crimes.
That brings us to the uneven consequences for these crimes. That, I believe, is the main issue. Although plagiarism and fabrication is a case-by-case basis, there should be a more strict policy on these issues in the newsrooms. It seems like it is a bigger deal in college, than in the professional world. In college, if you plagiarize to any extent, you’re done. As far as I’m aware, it doesn’t matter the extent to which you did or if you intended to. It’s a strict rule that leads to expulsion. Why is that not the same in the one career that is based on telling the public the truth? Obviously, the realistic answer is that people aren’t perfect, and there are other factors and connections that prevent people from being ethical. The fact that some people like Ruth Shalit, a white woman, can get a comeback and again ruin it, while Janet Cooke is stuck at a minimum wage job is unfair. The punishment should have been the same for both of them. Shalit shouldn’t have gotten a comeback, and neither should Cooke, but it speaks to the subtle racism in the newsroom. Again with stories like Mike Barnicle and Patricia Smith, who worked at the same publication at the same time, and only the one with dark skin was fired. The journalism field as a whole needs to look at the real reasons behind their decisions on who is punished and who is let free.
Overall, I believe that there are a plethora of reasons as to why journalists plagiarize or fabricate, but the main reason is the journalism culture. It is a toxic one, and I can recognize that not even having worked in one yet. The constant pressure and disregard for the human element of staff, and the competitive, fame-hungry nature of reporting only pushes these types of journalistic crimes to be used. If the thought is there, and a writer is under enough pressure by editors or other colleagues, the thought will turn into action, and is almost always caught. To disregard the golden rule of your profession is something that only people who are don’t really care about the truth act upon. A“good journalist” can never “go bad.” A “bad journalist” can never act “good.” If someone has that thought and acts on it, they were never there for the right reasons and the truth in the first place.
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