Posted on 01/09/2004 9:13:01 PM PST by 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
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.
Yep, I has the same problem. Never graduated from Oxford, but did finish six grades...
Uncle Jed and Granny are right proud of me.
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.
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.
And you Beantowners must be happy boys and girls this year...
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