corrente

(via Kansas City Star)

TOPEKA, Kan. - A managing editor at The Topeka Capital-Journal resigned when the newspaper learned that the subject of a lengthy profile had lied about being a survivor of the Bataan Death March during World War II.

The Capital-Journal announced the resignation of Anita Miller, managing editor for special projects, in a story posted Thursday on its Web site. The paper also apologized for its May 2 profile of [a local woman].

In that profile, the 86-year-old [woman] said she was a Navy nurse during the war and that she was among thousands of Americans who surrendered to the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942, only to be forced to march more than 60 miles to a prisoner-of-war camp.

The newspaper confronted [the woman] on Tuesday, after investigating two e-mail tips questioning her story. [The woman] admitted she had lied to the paper, her employer and in speeches she had given on the subject.

Executive Editor Will Kennedy apologized to readers in Thursday's story.

"We did not confirm many of the facts in the story before publication and we did not move with due speed in resolving the situation after we were notified that there were problems with the article."

Miller, who had worked for the newspaper for 28 years, said she was told she could resign or be fired. "I did not resign because of any wrongdoing," she said.

[The] freelance writer who wrote the story said the newspaper informed her it no longer will publish her stories.

[The woman] told the newspaper that she fabricated the story after she arrived in Topeka in the early 1990s. She said she told the story during an interview to make an impression and land [a job].

Just for the record, I gotta say this is a bit... draconian. To sack an editor after a 28 year career, because of inadequate fact-checking on a freelancer's feel-good fluff piece, involving an old woman who made up a story about events 60 years ago to get a job? That's harsh. But it shows that somewhere in this country there is a media outlet that has a fierce dedication to accuracy in journalism. Hint, it's just a little bit on the left side of the Hudson River.

Oh, and I pulled [the woman's] name out because (a) it's not relevant to my abuse of the NYT for failing to take any similar action whatever in a FAR more egregious case and (b) just in case the Lords of Karma are watching and I'm someday an 82 year old who is that desperate for work.

UPDATE You can share your views on how a real newsgathering institution should operate when it catches another "Miller" writing falsehoods with sadly overworked but strangely flaccid Times "public editor" Dan "Bud Man" Okrent.—Lambert