Posted on 04/15/2005 1:07:38 PM PDT by Mount Athos
A Boston Globe freelance writer fabricated large chunks of a story published this week, the newspaper said on Friday in the latest incident to embarrass the U.S. media.
The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co., said it stopped using writer Barbara Stewart because of a story that ran on Wednesday about a seasonal hunt for baby seals off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, had not taken place.
The story datelined Halifax, Nova Scotia described in graphic detail how the seal hunt began on Tuesday, with water turning red as hunters on some 300 boats shot harp seal cubs "by the hundreds."
The problem, however, was that the hunt did not begin on Tuesday; it was delayed by bad weather and was scheduled to start on Friday, weather permitting, the Globe said in an editor's note.
Stewart could not immediately be reached for comment.
The newspaper, which received a complaint from the Canadian government, said it should not have published the story and should have insisted on attribution for details because the writer was not reporting from the scene.
"Details included the number of hunters, a description of the scene, and the approximate age of the cubs. The author's failure to accurately report the status of the hunt and her fabrication of details at the scene are clear violations of the Globe's journalistic standards," it added.
Canada is extremely sensitive about the hunt, during which hundreds of thousands of seals are beaten to death or shot for their pelts every year. U.S. activists, who says the seals are killed inhumanely, are urging consumers to shun Canadian seafood until the hunt is stopped.
Canadian Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan said his officials had called the paper to point out the error.
"We've been trying to get the facts out about the seal harvest, the fact that the herd is very healthy ... that in 98 percent of cases it (the hunt) is done in a humane way," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Officials with the newspaper were not immediately available for further comment.
U.S. media organizations have been hit with a series of high-profile cases involving plagiarism or fabrication.
In 2003, The New York Times' top two editors, Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd, left the paper after it was disclosed that reporter Jayson Blair had fabricated and plagiarized material.
CBS News, The Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, the New Republic magazine and USA Today are among the other media icons caught up in celebrated flaps over inaccurate reporting.
Oopsie, got caught out again.
Silly liberal rags.
Not a conservative, or even moderate entity in the bunch...
Geezus. I'm shocked. Really. I am. Shocked....
You've clubbed one baby seal, you've clubbed them all.
Notice that there is no reference to the Wall Street Journal, National Review, or Fox News? And they wonder why no one trusts them anymore.
SHOCKING!
Wow. The MSM is really hitting a new low when the leftwing Canadian government is calling them on their false propaganda.
I read in an earlier article today that in a recent poll only 21% of respondents thought the NYT was a reliable source of news. This is just another nail in that coffin.
Surprise, surprise.
Wasn't it just last week that the NY Times was caught fishing around for a Republican, any Republican, to write a hit piece against Tom DeLay? Those liberal Democrat scumbags at the New York Times and the Boston Globe have absolutely no class. I just wish those two newspapers would hurry up and die, along with most other parasite-nest (big city) newspapers.
"Fake but accurate"
Usual nonsense.
This thread is the most fitting location for that image!
w00t!
Jayson Blair, Fox Butterfield, and now this.
I love how those animal shows always end "....But there's one beast so powerful that even this ferocious animal can't stop...MAN"
The Globe is good for wrapping fish. Is it also good for wrapping seal meat?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.