USA Today and Fake News

But she was attacking Trump (at least part of the time), so they took her word for everything. USA Today reporter Gabriela Miranda fabricated sources for 23 articles

So the question is, does USA today get credit for trying to clean this up, or a black-mark for ignoring it until an "outside organization" requested a correction?

USA Today said it has deleted 23 articles from its website after an investigation found that the reporter who wrote them used fabricated sources.

The journalist who is said to have used the fabricated sources was identified as Gabriela Miranda, a breaking news reporter who resigned from the Virginia-based newspaper weeks ago, the paper confirmed Thursday.

An audit of her work was triggered when a correction request was made by an outside organization. The details are not clear, but I would guess that some organization stated something like "John Q. Source, listed in your article, never worked for our organization."

“The audit revealed that some individuals quoted were not affiliated with the organizations claimed and appeared to be fabricated,” the note read.

“The existence of other individuals quoted could not be independently verified. In addition, some stories included quotes that should have been credited to others.”

But don't worry, USA Today is going to "audit their procedures" (or something) to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again. Somehow I doubt they are going to start rigorously fact-checking their own peoples' work.

Professional Journalism: a quaint idea from the 20th Century that didn't survive identity politics? Well, maybe that is overstated. A bit.

So where were all the fact-checkers at Twitter and F*c*book? How did 23 articles make it thru?

After the break, you will find a selection of other instances where Professional Journalism™ got things stupidly wrong.

• ‘A Team of Editors’ in which the NY Times listed a homicide victim as having died of COVID-19
• New York Times Had a Story on Venezuela That Ignores Socialism. Because that had nothing to do with the collapse, or something.
• Freelance reporter fired from Boston Globe for adding fictitious details to story. In which Barbara Stewart wrote, and the Boston Globe published, a detailed account of a Canadian seal hunt that didn't take place. (It was postponed due to weather.)
• Janet Cooke returned a Pulitzer Prize after admitting that a story published by the Washington Post was fake.
• Patricia Smith was asked to resign from The Boston Globe "after editors discovered her metro column contained fictional characters and fabricated events."
• Stephen Glass was a reporter for The New Republic until it was shown that several of his articles were fictitious.

I could go on at considerable length. From Rolling Stone Magazine's story about a rape at a fraternity house at the University of Virginia, to Jayson Blair of the New York Times, and more.