Newly Hired Indianapolis Sports Columnist Resigns Over Resume [more NY Times liars exposed]

Associated Press ^ | Jan 9, 2004 | Drew Lawrence

[Pharmboy]

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A sportswriter who left his job at The New York Times to become a sports columnist for The Indianapolis Star admitted he falsified his resume and resigned his new post Friday. Star Editor and Vice President Dennis R. Ryerson announced he had accepted Mike Freeman's resignation in an item headlined "note to readers" that was posted on the newspaper's Web site.

In a statement included in the Star's note, Freeman said he knowingly stated on his resume and in an interview for the job that he was a graduate of the University of Delaware. Freeman's statement said he had attended for four years, but did not graduate.

"It was the only time I have told such falsehoods and no other deceptions have ever appeared in any of my newspaper stories or two books at any time in my 16 years of practicing journalism," the statement said. "Nevertheless, the information I gave the Star was wrong and I will be punished with the loss of my newspaper career."

The Star's Web story did not indicate how the paper learned of the falsification. The Associated Press left a phone message after business hours for Ryerson. Freeman could not immediately be reached for comment. There is no phone listing for him in the Indianapolis area.

"The Star is committed to operating with high ethical standards," Ryerson said.

Freeman, 37, had been a sports reporter for the past 10 years at the Times, where he covered the NBA and NFL. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post.

Freeman was to have started his new position Monday.

AP-ES-01-09-04 2043EST

Copyright 2003 Associated Press

[Pharmboy]

I have read Freeman for years. Wow...let's see if the Times reports this.

[Pharmboy]

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[stylin19a]

geez.......then what kind of resume did he give the Times ?

[Pharmboy]

Good question...and how many more lies did he tell the Indy paper? And how many more were in his stories?

[Diogenesis]

LOL. No wonder the New York Times never has had interest in resume fraud.
Resume fraud extends throughout the New York Times masthead.

[SamAdams76]

Why would a college degree be so important to be a damn sports columnist? I could write a better sports column than half those hacks and I don't even follow sports that much (except maybe NFL football)>

[Timesink]

Why would a journalist leave The New York Times to move to Indianapolis in the first place? This doesn't sound like it was a step up. I'd like to know why he left The Times in the first place.

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[WL-law]

Jayson Blair also went to U of Delaware, I believe, and also lied about his status as graduate. Weird.

[Samwise]

Here it is:

http://www.indystar.com/articles/1/109943-7101-092.html

[Timesink]

Why would a college degree be so important to be a damn sports columnist?

It's not. Most papers (hell, most employers across the board) just put the "requirement" in there to be elitist and/or to reduce the number of applicants. Fewer incoming resumes = fewer resumes to have to pore over. Plain old laziness.

But having written for The Times should have easily trumped any lack of a degree, especially if he put in most of the college time anyway. Freeman's problem is that he lied about it.

[stands2reason]

Hey now, Indianapolis is a world-class city...

(sputter--gurgle--snicker--cough)

[Criminal Number 18F]

Why would a college degree be so important to be a damn sports columnist?

It isn't, but lying about it is important.

Maybe the Indy paper did what all employers should do and checked resume facts. That would bring this kind of fraud to a complete halt.

I suspect that Freeman learned in the culture of the Times that the truth isn't important. They're still running stories cut to fit the DNC party line, weaving and twisting with its changes. They're still featuring phony Charlie LeDuff after LeDuff has been exposed as a serial plaigiarist. He put someone else's story on Page 1 and they sloughed it off with a near-agate "correction" buried inside. They're still hanging on to Walter Duranty's Pulitzer, awarded for fabricated stories (that may not even have been fabricated by Duranty himself, but by his NKVD handlers). They're still standing by Iraq stories that have been exposed as fabrications.

They were reluctant to cut Blair and Bragg loose, even as both were exposed as plaigiarists. Integrity is clearly a foreign concept in Times Square.

But when you think about it, why wouldn't liberal journalists overlook resume fraud? Hey, if you stand for nothing, as do these papers, you'll fall for anything.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[JohnnyZ]

Jayson Blair also went to U of Delaware, I believe, and also lied about his status as graduate. Weird.

It is weird. I mean, it's frickin U Delaware. It's not like you have to study or go to class in order to get A's. Maybe this guy had an overdue book and they wouldn't give him his degree.

[TaxRelief]

I'm with you there Sam. The left is obsessed with degrees, rather than knowledge.

[stands2reason]

Wow, I was just on a Gollum thread, and now I see you here....


Now I have the urge to watch Two Towers again....

[Baynative]

From the examples we've seen lately a journalism degree is of no value at all. Most of these people seem to write opinion taht passes for news.

I have a hunch that when Bob Woodward is lying on his death bed we will learn that he pulled the greatest hoax since that guy who scammed the Pulitzer with his fake reporting on Stalinist Russia.

[Bonaparte]

University of Maryland. Journalism major. Rocky time as editor of student paper. Didn't graduate. Instead, went to work at the Times.

[Grampa Dave]

Old habits must be really hard to break for the pyschotic liars, who pretend to be reporters for the NY Slimes.

[mrustow]

I believe it was the University of Maryland, in Blair's case.

[mrustow]

I can't imagine he is white, because the Times checks on things like that in the case of white applicants.

[mrustow]

But having written for The Times should have easily trumped any lack of a degree, especially if he put in most of the college time anyway. Freeman's problem is that he lied about it.

Exactimiento. It was really stupid, since telling the truth would not have cost him the job. I think that either he lied out of sheer habit, or to be consistent, so that no one would ever find out he'd lied to the Times.

I realize that it would be unlikely for people to get their hands on his NYT and IS resumes and compare them, but if he had told the truth to the Star, it might have eventually gotten around that, "Hey, Mike Freeman is a successful sports writer, in spite of never having finished college." Word might've gotten back to the Times, and someone might have exposed Freeman for his earlier lie. Freeman might have recalled that it was conflicting resumes that proved to be Janet Cook's undoing.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: Freeman's statement said he had attended for four years, but did not graduate.

Yep, I has the same problem. Never graduated from Oxford, but did finish six grades...

Uncle Jed and Granny are right proud of me.

[NYCVirago]

Why would a college degree be so important to be a damn sports columnist? I could write a better sports column than half those hacks and I don't even follow sports that much (except maybe NFL football)

I don't know why this guy lied on his resume for this job. He was a journalist for 15 years -- at this point in his career, his experience is what he gets hired on, not his degree.

[xJones]

It looks like Mike made himself some enemies, while being a typical "sensitive" NYT reporter. Google on Mike Freeman.

A little over three years ago, he trashed other reporters covering the New York Jets: "Writing to Sportspages.com, Freeman described the New York Jets' beat as full of constant backstabbing, petty personal vendettas, racism and sexism. "In New York," Freeman wrote, "writers have elevated the sport of nastiness to Olympic levels, fabricating stories about competitors to the team officials they cover, portraying black writers as lackeys for black athletes and treating some women reporters as an inferior species."

And in his less than best-selling book, "Bloody Sundays", Freeman devotes a chapter to the shadow life of gay NFL players by inventing his own anonymous source whom the reader should trust him that that is a real person, ala Bob Woodward's technique.

He knew the right buttons to push at the NYT, but the truth finally caught up with him, in spite of all his whining.

[Pharmboy]

...and I don't even follow sports that much (except maybe NFL football)

And you Beantowners must be happy boys and girls this year...

[Pharmboy]

This is not really a chicken...

[jocon307]

"But having written for The Times should have easily trumped any lack of a degree,..."

Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you? Oh, well, I lied about my qualifications ONE TIME, and of course I got busted. But it was more a fudge (like this guy's) than a lie, and I got the job anyway. But boy, I learned my lesson, and would NEVER fudge like that again.

Now, should I be worried about U of Delaware? The kid is applying there. I just want her to get in someplace and GO! But I don't want her to comeback a craven, mendacious, dissembler, that's for sure. She's enough of a bs artist as it is.

{Sigh} Motherhood, nothing but worry!