O/T Anti Caught

[Galgo]

Friday, April 15, 2005


BOSTON (Reuters) - 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 seal hunt off Newfoundland -- a hunt, it turns out, that had not taken place.

The Halifax, Nova Scotia-datelined article 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 first learned of the problem when the Canadian government called to complain, said in an editor's note 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," the paper said.

'NEVER ASSUME'

Globe Foreign Editor James Smith said that the newspaper knew Stewart was not at the seal hunt and was doing her reporting from Halifax.

"What she told us -- and we did check during the day -- was that she had confirmed with one of the fishermen in the story that it was going ahead," Smith said, adding that in retrospect the paper should have worked harder to clarify this.

"The point is, never assume," he told Reuters.

He added that Globe staffers have since reviewed two other stories Stewart wrote for the paper, but found no inaccuracies or other problems with them.

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.