Well, was she a news reporter, or a columnist?
If you're a columnist, is the content of your column supposed to be literally true, or can you just rehash stories some guy told you in a bar?
If you intentionally fabricate a story without identifying it as fictionalized, that is the height of unethical Journalism. she lead her readers to believe these people existed. If they were in fact HER first hand accounts why not write as such. the MSM and it's minions have gotten away with this slick little trick of lying for to long. Now they are getting outted for the dishonest propagandist they really are.
But the bar should at least exist. Writing about a bartender when the bartender and the bar do not exist is, well, setting the "bar" too low -- even for a liberal rag like the Sacramento Bee.
A good number of syndicated columnists write opinion pieces. I'd think that would be good enough for the editors without making up scores of fictitious folk to make the articles more exciting.
Maybe what the reporter was churning out wasn't anything to write home about, so she tried to spice it up. ;)