What Went Wrong?

The paper had launched the inquiry into Kelley's work after someone at the paper sent an anonymous complaint about the reporter in May 2003 to the newspaper's executive editor, Brian Gallagher.

Initially the paper's staff focused on a single July 14, 1999 story Kelley had written about Yugoslavia in which he reported seeing a three-ring notebook that included specific documents about the ethnic cleansing and killings in a Kosovar village. The paper's investigator could not find anyone to collaborate the story, but when he asked Kelley about it, the reporter supplied the name of a translator who could confirm it.

As it would turn out, the translator was reading from a version of the story told her by Kelley. This obstruction, coupled with the suspicion that Kelley, then 43 years old, could not legitimately confirm his account, lead to his dismissal.

The tumultuous end to the career of a reporter once hailed by the Pulitzer committee for his "wide-ranging and prescient reporting on centers of foreign terrorism, often conducted at personal risk," prompted the editors at the newspaper that same month to launch a more expanded review of Kelley's work over concerns that the former star correspondent's misconduct might go deeper than a single story.

That review, headed by John Siegenthaler, the founding editorial director of the paper, at first cast a wide net to vet some 720 stories written by Kelley and ultimately uncovered an alarming number of journalistic transgressions.

It soon became clear that Kelley had on several occasions embellished and/or completely fabricated situations he said he saw first-hand, lifted quotes without attribution and drafted scripts for his sources aimed at assuaging his editor's concerns about a story.

The final report would be more blunt and critical, not just of Kelley but of a newsroom culture that allowed Kelley to mislead USA Today editors and its readers.

"Any appraisal of how Jack Kelley got away with years of fraudulent news reporting at USA Today, despite numerous, well-grounded warnings that he was fabricating stories, exaggerating facts and plagiarizing other publications, must begin with this question: Why did newsroom managers at every level of the paper ignore, rebuff and reject years of multiple serious and valid complaints about Kelley's work?" the final report, made public on April 22, said.

The investigation said that Kelley's questionable reporting dated back to at least 1991 and that despite numerous concerned comments from editors and reporters, his "star" status and perceived support from the highest echelon of the newspaper kept editors from thoroughly scrutinizing his work.

The review board also blasted the newspaper's editors for failing to enforce their own stated policies, especially in regards to the use of unnamed sources.

"In reviewing his work it was clear that editing standards on his use of unnamed sources was appallingly lax," the report read. "His ability to get away with obscuring any reliable trace of who his sources were is a testament to his ability to deceive and to the inability of his editors to demand that he prove their authenticity."

The report also criticized the newspaper's bureaucratic structure that limited interaction between reporters and editors and even between editors.

"It is ironic that staff members of the daily that communicates with more readers than any other publication in the nation, failed for years to communicate effectively among themselves about the problems of the reporter who disgraced himself and humiliated his newspaper," the investigators wrote.

What made detection harder for the editors who supervised him and the reporters who later investigated him is that Kelley's reporting was often solid and his stories, even those that relied on anonymous sources, were accurate.

At least four major front-page stories on Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia and several others turned out to be incisive investigative pieces.

But it was the dozens of transgressions that brought Kelley's downfall -- a fact he later admitted in a statement after being confronted by the paper's final inquiry.

"I have made a number of serious mistakes that violate the values that are most important to me as a person and as a journalist. I recognize that I cannot make amends for the harm I have caused to my family, friends and colleagues. Nor can I make it up to readers who depend upon good journalism to understand a chaotic and confusing world. I can only offer my sincere apology to those I have let down. Although I remain proud of much of the work I did over 21 years, I understand that what I did wrong will diminish what I did right," Kelley said in an e-mailed statement the newspaper published in April 2004.

In the end, the USA Today investigation concluded Kelley made up all or part of 20 stories that appeared in the paper, lifted more than 100 passages and quotes from other, uncredited sources and billed the newspaper for thousands of dollars for translators and assistants that they say they never received.

How Did News of Kelley's Deception Come out?

On Jan. 8, The Washington Post's media analyst Howard Kurtz published a report on the incident that characterized Kelley as "a USA Today correspondent who has repeatedly risked his life in war zones around the world" and quoted unnamed colleagues of Kelley as saying the paper's investigation was "deeply unfair" and "wrongly suggested that Kelley might be another Jayson Blair."

The paper's editor, Karen Jurgensen, also said initially that USA Today would not be correcting any of Kelley's stories "at this time," leading many in the media to question how fair the newspaper had treated an almost universally liked reporter and whether Kelley was actually culpable of falsifying his stories.

After several days of back and forth in the media, the executives at USA Today finally began to make public the whole story of their investigation into Kelley.

"The reason for ending Kelley's employment was that he engaged in an elaborate deception during an investigation into his work," USA Today editor Jurgensen said on Jan. 13. "He admitted that he engaged in conduct designed to deceive the investigation."

In a lengthy statement aimed at explaining the decision to fire Kelley, Jurgensen detailed the investigation into a single story by Kelley and how the veteran reporter tried to impede that inquiry.

Kelley also issued a statement focusing on the same investigation and remained defiant.

"I walk away from USA Today knowing that in 21 years I have never had a correction or retraction printed," Kelley said in the January statement run by the paper. "Every story published under my byline was accurate based on what I saw, the interviews conducted and the details available at that time."

But the story was not over and it was largely the reporters at USA Today and, to a lesser extent, the Baltimore Sun that continued to examine and track down Kelley's transgressions.

As part of the internal review, USA Today reporters closely scrutinized more than 100 of Kelley's articles, narrowing their investigation from the 720 articles that the review board first checked for plagiarism and fabrications.

Seven weeks into their investigation, USA Today issued a series of scathing articles that eviscerated several of Kelley's most notable stories, including an Aug. 10, 2001 story about a suicide bombing in Jerusalem that Kelley falsely claimed to witness and a Nov. 26, 2001 story on terrorist training camps run by Osama bin Laden that Kelley had actually plagiarized from several news sources.

The publication of those articles, followed by the release of a major report that blasted both Kelley as a liar and the management of the paper for allowing him to get away with it, highlighted the newspaper's very public self-examination.

The Baltimore Sun continued to focus attention on the editors' unwillingness to listen to reporters and sources who were questioning the veracity of Kelley's work. The Sun also reported on Jurgensen's eventual departure over the scandal, while quoting reporters and editors as saying Jurgensen should not be blamed for the Kelley blow-up.

"The editor who is least responsible for Jack Kelley is the one who has to leave, and that is wrong," veteran USA Today reporter Tom Squitieri told the Sun in March 2004.

Between the two papers, more than two dozen articles and reports on the Kelley inquiry were published between January 2004 and the end of April, many of them detailing how Kelley got away with his deception, and nearly as many focusing on the effort to reform the paper and hold editors accountable.

What Did the Paper Do About It?

The three veteran editors -- Siegenthaler; Bill Hilliard, former editor of The Oregonian of Portland, and Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists -- headed an independent inquiry which included more than 20 hours of interviews with Kelley.

The first round of stories generated by the team of reporters and overseen by the investigating panel appeared on March 18, 2004. The initial series of reports laid bare a much broader case against Kelley than had been revealed when he left the paper in January.

The lead article explained that reporters had "found strong evidence that Kelley fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories, lifted nearly two dozen quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he gave for the newspaper and conspired to mislead those investigating his work."

One of the lead investigators, Bill Kovach, spoke on the NewsHour on March 22 about the difficult job of confronting Kelley with the accumulated evidence.

"It has been a very frustrating, sad and depressing time for John Seigenthaler, Bill Hilliard and me to sit around across the table from what was the star reporter for the newspaper for 20 hours and try to get him to realize what he had done," Kovach told Terence Smith.

Less than a month later, the three editors submitted their full report to publisher Craig Moon. The inquiry criticized a culture of fear that made reporters loath to question the paper's star reporter and a lax editing structure that allowed Kelley to use unnamed sources in violation of the paper's own rules.

The Fallout from the Internal Review

In a six-paragraph memo to staffers, publisher Craig Moon said Jurgensen's "retirement opens the door to move the USA Today brand forward under new leadership. A search for a new editor is underway. We will fill the position as soon as possible."

Many observers saw the decision as unfortunate, but to many, it was a necessary step.

"It makes me very sad. It makes me sad because the staffs of these fine newspapers have suffered. It makes me sad because newspaper people across America and other journalists suffer because of the credibility issues this raises with the public," former Washington Post ombudsmen Geneva Overholser said on the NewsHour just after Jurgensen retired. "In the end, I think it was essential that someone -- and after all, Karen was the chief news executive at this moment, however unfair the immediate connections may or may not be -- had to step down."

But Jurgensen's departure was just the first in a sweeping series of staff changes and reorganization the paper would undergo in April.

Two day's later, Hal Ritter, the managing editor of USA Today's News section, resigned and executive editor Brian Gallagher said he would leave his position as well.

"I don't think anyone could possibly be more upset about the Kelley mess than I am," USA Today quoted Ritter as saying in a statement. "I love our newspaper dearly. My departure will make it easier for my colleagues in News to continue the job of making the newspaper even greater."

On April 29, the paper completed its major newsroom shakeup, naming Ken Paulson as editor.

Asked by the paper if this meant the Kelley scandal could be closed, Paulson cautioned, "When a newspaper's credibility is damaged, it's never quite over. We have to be vigilant and protect the integrity of USA Today on a daily basis."

The paper has also attempted to address many of the issues raised by the independent review.

One role that has been bolstered in the wake of the Kelley scandal was that of the Reader Editor. Although the position had existed for several years, Paulson moved to raise its prominence. In every edition of the paper, a photo of Reader Editor Brent Jones appears on the editorial page, soliciting feedback and concerns about USA Today's coverage.

Jones then takes that feedback into a daily meeting with editors at the paper. He told the Online NewsHour that, "readers appreciate having a direct line of communication" with the editors of the paper and that the overall reaction has been "positive."

But one of the major editorial changes came in the paper's approach to the use of unnamed sources, one of the major methods Kelley used to cover up his more questionable stories.

Less than two months after arriving at the paper, Paulson required that one of the paper's five managing editors or a higher ranking editor must agree to the use of each unnamed source.

"And the managing editor has to make a judgment that the source is absolutely essential to the story and the value to readers outweighs the potential damage to our credibility," Paulson told Editor & Publisher in June 2004.

Previously, reporters only needed to inform their direct supervisor of the anonymous source's identity.

Finally the paper created a standards and development editor position to monitor how the reporters and editors are adhering to the established policies.

Both the personnel and structural changes are aimed at one goal: to dissipate the "bit of a cloud" the entire scandal has put over the work of USA Today's reporters and editors, according to those involved in the paper's management.

"These have been difficult weeks and months for the able journalists who make up the staff of USA Today," publisher Craig Moon said upon release of the scathing review in April 2004. "We rely heavily on them to assure a bright future for the nation's newspaper."

-- By Lee Banville, Online NewsHour