By Steven Snyder

Who’s watching the watchers?

Journalism has long been one of the world’s most respected fields of study, a profession of writers charged with observing the world, recording the truth and enlightening their readers about issues, places and subjects of which they have no other knowledge.

Picking up a newspaper, we believe we are reading an unbiased, accurate accounting of a breaking story. We use this as our basis for arguments and debates, and to some degree it becomes our barometer of the outside world. Newspapers have affected trials, revolutions, elections and even the founding of this nation.

For these reasons, the recent scandals rocking the world of journalism are far more meaningful than the corporate or political bombshells that have dominated headlines as of late. It is an epidemic that must be remedied, and quickly.

It all started with Stephen Glass of the New Republic, who blatantly fabricated people, places, web sites and events in order to produce the best stories possible. Based on his life, the recent film “Shattered Glass” recreates his many fabrications and lies which went unnoticed through 27 reports; work that was not only factually inaccurate, but pure fiction.

Then there was Jayson Blair of the New York Times, who last spring was exposed as an even greater fraud. He would use fake bylines, claiming he was in other states covering stories when he was, in fact, in New York City. He used completely fabricated quotes, plagiarized material from numerous sources, and relied on photographs of scenes to create an artificial setting for his stories. He was a liar, in every sense of the word.
And now we come to the last two weeks, and the disintegration of yet another publication’s reputation – USA Today.

This latest tale involves Jack Kelley, a reporter with USA Today, the nation’s largest publication. Without question the paper’s star writer, and nominated multiple times for the Pulitzer Prize (he was a finalist in 2002), Kelley was known for bringing home shocking and intimate stories from hot spots around the world. He was sent to cover the Mideast prior to the first Gulf War, to Israel to document the rising tensions, to Cuba, Haiti and to the embattled Kosovo.

His reports were always memorable, including one detailing the dangerous sea journey of Cubans desperate to reach American shores, another detailing a West Bank bombing that nearly killed Kelley himself and a report on the Russian mafia which required Kelley to be protected by bodyguards for years after.

But his most fantastic submission may have not been true at all. On July 14, 1999, USA Today ran an explosive article titled “U.N.: Records link Serbs to war crimes,” and in it Kelley described a journal he had been shown which asserted the Serb military had intentionally engaged in ethnic cleansing in the Kosovo conflict.

Last Tuesday, USA Today editors published a damning outline of their investigations into Kelley’s reporting, particularly of the 1999 article mentioned above, and of the vast deception that Kelley engaged in following the beginning of that inquiry. The paper said it had not proven its suspicions, but that Kelley had resigned.

The situation grew even more extreme last Friday, when USA Today intensified its probe, saying it would establish an independent panel to extensively review each and every Kelley report. Apparently while investigating Kelley’s supposed plagiarism of a 1998 Washington Post article, editors had uncovered additional reasons for concern.

What’s shocking is not that another reporter has apparently misled us. After all, lying is only human nature. What IS shocking is that a bigger deal is not being made of this.

USA Today’s first substantial report on the issue was buried inside the publication, and coverage by the New York Times has been confined to its national and business sections. Through this placement, Kelley’s story is being dismissed as less important than other news when, in fact, it may be the only news that really matters.

Kelley’s offenses are worse than the previous offenders. In his reports, he changed public opinion in regards to foreign affairs, and perhaps even affected Congressional pressure in regards to foreign policy. To accept that he has lied, exaggerated or plagiarized means that he has profoundly abused the very cornerstone of our freedom – the first amendment, protected to ensure a free flow of information to the nation’s citizens.

Am I making too big a deal out of this? Perhaps. We all wait for the results of the paper’s independent panel.

But with the downfall of the New York Times and now USA TODAY, one must start asking the unthinkable. What publications will be next? Who can I trust any longer? Where can I find the truth?

As long as these questions can’t be answered with confidence, it’s all just a waste of ink.

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