NoMyths
03-20-2004, 11:56 AM
The fall of Jack Kelley is as instructive as a psalm.
1) Report from Hell [An article/interview with God-fearing Jack Kelley] (http://www.connectionmagazine.org/archives_old/2001_05/reportfromhell.htm)
2) USA Today Says Reporter Faked Stories (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040319/D81DGNKO2.html)
Excerpts:
Report from Hell
[...]
"Journalism is a calling," he explains. "I feel God's pleasure when I write and report. It isn't because of the glory, but because God has called me to proclaim truth, and to worship and serve him through other people."
His role models, he says, are four of "the greatest journalists of all time"; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
[...]
"I talk to the Lord constantly," he adds. "That is the only way I can get through this job. I should have died a long time ago. God is protecting me. I don't think I am testing the Lord. I just think this is what he has called me to do, and he will equip me as necessary."
[...]
"As Christians, we are called to be in the world but not of the world. But some Christians, I'm afraid, are not even in the world. They refuse to keep up with the news. They isolate themselves.
[...]
Jack, who became a Christian 21 years ago in the Catholic charismatic movement, also has role models in his own family. "My mother was the first to be born again, and encouraged my father, my sister, and me to follow her example. My sister is now a missionary along with her husband and children with Youth for Christ, and my wife Jackie is also a loving and giving person. Jacki and my mom have more integrity than anyone I know."
[...]
"After seeing such devotion," he admits, "I have no right to complain or to put my own feelings and thoughts or wishes above God's, ever. The Lord teaches me with every assignment the kind of person he wants his followers to be."
Full Text:
USA Today Says Reporter Faked Stories
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - USA Today said Friday that an examination of the work of journalist Jack Kelley found strong evidence that the newspaper's former star foreign correspondent had fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories.
"As an institution, we failed our readers by not recognizing Jack Kelley's problems. For that I apologize," publisher Craig Moon said.
After spending seven weeks closely examining Kelley's work, a team of journalists also found that Kelley had lifted quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he delivered for USA Today and conspired to mislead the investigation into his work.
An examination of his computer unearthed scripts Kelley had written to help at least three people mislead reporters attempting to verify his work, the newspaper said.
For a story in 2000, the newspaper said, Kelley used a snapshot he took of a Cuban hotel worker to authenticate a tale he made up about a woman who died fleeing Cuba by boat. The woman in the published photo never fled by boat, and a USA Today reporter located her alive this month, the newspaper said.
Kelley, 43, quit the newspaper in January after admitting he conspired with a translator to mislead editors looking into the veracity of his reporting.
Kelly said he'd never fabricated or plagiarized.
"I feel like I'm being set up," he told editors at the newspaper on Thursday.
Kelley spent his entire 21-year career at USA Today and was five times nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious award in journalism.
For one of the stories that helped make him a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2001, Kelley wrote that he was an eyewitness to a suicide bombing in Jerusalem and described the carnage in graphic detail. But the investigation showed that the man Kelley described as the bomber could not have been the culprit, and his description of three decapitated victims was contradicted by police.
The newspaper also said "the evidence strongly contradicted" other published accounts by Kelley: that he spent the night with Egyptian terrorists in 1997; met a vigilante Jewish settler named Avi Shapiro in 2001; watched a Pakistani student unfold a picture of the Sears Tower and say, "This one is mine," in 2001; interviewed the daughter of an Iraqi general in 2003; or went on a high-speed hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2003.
Hotel, phone or other records contradicted Kelley's explanations of how he reported stories from Egypt, Russia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Pakistan, the newspaper said.
The three former newspaper editors brought in to conduct the investigation - Bill Hilliard, Bill Kovach and John Seigenthaler - called Kelley's conduct "a sad and shameful betrayal of public trust."
1) Report from Hell [An article/interview with God-fearing Jack Kelley] (http://www.connectionmagazine.org/archives_old/2001_05/reportfromhell.htm)
2) USA Today Says Reporter Faked Stories (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040319/D81DGNKO2.html)
Excerpts:
Report from Hell
[...]
"Journalism is a calling," he explains. "I feel God's pleasure when I write and report. It isn't because of the glory, but because God has called me to proclaim truth, and to worship and serve him through other people."
His role models, he says, are four of "the greatest journalists of all time"; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
[...]
"I talk to the Lord constantly," he adds. "That is the only way I can get through this job. I should have died a long time ago. God is protecting me. I don't think I am testing the Lord. I just think this is what he has called me to do, and he will equip me as necessary."
[...]
"As Christians, we are called to be in the world but not of the world. But some Christians, I'm afraid, are not even in the world. They refuse to keep up with the news. They isolate themselves.
[...]
Jack, who became a Christian 21 years ago in the Catholic charismatic movement, also has role models in his own family. "My mother was the first to be born again, and encouraged my father, my sister, and me to follow her example. My sister is now a missionary along with her husband and children with Youth for Christ, and my wife Jackie is also a loving and giving person. Jacki and my mom have more integrity than anyone I know."
[...]
"After seeing such devotion," he admits, "I have no right to complain or to put my own feelings and thoughts or wishes above God's, ever. The Lord teaches me with every assignment the kind of person he wants his followers to be."
Full Text:
USA Today Says Reporter Faked Stories
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) - USA Today said Friday that an examination of the work of journalist Jack Kelley found strong evidence that the newspaper's former star foreign correspondent had fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories.
"As an institution, we failed our readers by not recognizing Jack Kelley's problems. For that I apologize," publisher Craig Moon said.
After spending seven weeks closely examining Kelley's work, a team of journalists also found that Kelley had lifted quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he delivered for USA Today and conspired to mislead the investigation into his work.
An examination of his computer unearthed scripts Kelley had written to help at least three people mislead reporters attempting to verify his work, the newspaper said.
For a story in 2000, the newspaper said, Kelley used a snapshot he took of a Cuban hotel worker to authenticate a tale he made up about a woman who died fleeing Cuba by boat. The woman in the published photo never fled by boat, and a USA Today reporter located her alive this month, the newspaper said.
Kelley, 43, quit the newspaper in January after admitting he conspired with a translator to mislead editors looking into the veracity of his reporting.
Kelly said he'd never fabricated or plagiarized.
"I feel like I'm being set up," he told editors at the newspaper on Thursday.
Kelley spent his entire 21-year career at USA Today and was five times nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious award in journalism.
For one of the stories that helped make him a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2001, Kelley wrote that he was an eyewitness to a suicide bombing in Jerusalem and described the carnage in graphic detail. But the investigation showed that the man Kelley described as the bomber could not have been the culprit, and his description of three decapitated victims was contradicted by police.
The newspaper also said "the evidence strongly contradicted" other published accounts by Kelley: that he spent the night with Egyptian terrorists in 1997; met a vigilante Jewish settler named Avi Shapiro in 2001; watched a Pakistani student unfold a picture of the Sears Tower and say, "This one is mine," in 2001; interviewed the daughter of an Iraqi general in 2003; or went on a high-speed hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2003.
Hotel, phone or other records contradicted Kelley's explanations of how he reported stories from Egypt, Russia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Pakistan, the newspaper said.
The three former newspaper editors brought in to conduct the investigation - Bill Hilliard, Bill Kovach and John Seigenthaler - called Kelley's conduct "a sad and shameful betrayal of public trust."