Breach of Trust

TERENCE SMITH:

The top editor at USA Today, Karen Jurgensen, stepped down abruptly yesterday amid a fabrication and plagiarism scandal at the nation's largest circulation newspaper.

A 21-year veteran of the paper, she had been editor since 1999. The reporter at the center of the scandal is Jack Kelley, the newspaper's former star foreign correspondent. He resigned in January after an initial review of his work concluded he had invented sources. At the time, Kelley admitted misleading editors in their investigation but denied that his stories were false.

A full review of his work was conducted by five reporters and one editor from the paper and it continued under the guidance of a three-member panel of eminent former editors from outside the paper. That three-member panel has submitted its final report to USA Today, but the findings have not so far been made public.

In March, the paper printed a two-page preliminary finding on Kelley's transgressions. Among the stories Kelley was said to have embellished or fabricated: an August 2001 eyewitness account of a suicide bombing in central Jerusalem for which he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist; a story describing the attempted escape of six Cubans from the island who, Kelley claimed, drowned en route to the U.S.; and a piece about the hunt for al-Qaida in Pakistan during 2002.

The Kelley revelations and Jurgensen's retirement come amid a scandal-filled year for newspapering. Last May, reporter Jayson Blair left The New York Times after it was found that he had fabricated or plagiarized parts of dozens of stories. Blair resigned under pressure, and the two top editors at the paper left amid a newsroom revolt over their leadership. That episode sent shockwaves not only through the Times but through the industry as a whole.

A search for a new editor at USA Today is now under way.

TERENCE SMITH:

Joining me now to discuss this are Susan Page, the Washington Bureau chief of USA Today; and Geneva Overholser, journalism professor at the University of Missouri and former editor of the Des Moines Register and ombudsman at The Washington Post. Welcome to you both.

Susan Page, give us first the view from inside the paper. Why did the editor step down and what does her action communicate?

SUSAN PAGE:

Well, about 5 p.m. last night an e-mail went out from our publisher to the whole staff saying that Karen Jurgensen was stepping down. She stepped down because of the Jack Kelley affair.

I don't think that Karen was culpable. It's not that she was directly responsible for the dishonesty that Jack Kelly perpetrated on the paper, but I think she felt accountable for it. Therefore, I think that's why she chose to step down. The story is not over yet. We're waiting for a report from this panel of three excellent outside journalists. We think that may come tomorrow or Friday, so still more to the story to come.

TERENCE SMITH:

More shoes to drop?

SUSAN PAGE:

I think so.

TERENCE SMITH:

More editors involved?

SUSAN PAGE:

That I don't know. I mean, obviously, Karen Jurgensen is not the only person with responsibility here. Jack worked for a lot of editors over a lot of years. But I think we have to wait and see what this report concludes before we know what happens next.

TERENCE SMITH:

Geneva Overholser, what's your view of this — when you step back and looked at not only USA Today, but the really quite stunning fact that the top editors of two of the three national newspapers that we have in this country have stepped down in the space of one year over ethical lapses.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

It's remarkable really, Terry. 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. And you know, the average journalist is doing a really good job and dedicated and devoted and not faking things and not plagiarizing, but then we have these huge stories about two of our major papers, as you have said.

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.

TERENCE SMITH:

Susan, if, when you think about the paper and the way it works, is, in your view, the core problem the actions of individual reporters or is it a culture in the paper that encourages those actions?

SUSAN PAGE:

You know, you can find a lot of blame to spread around. But I think, in this case, this reporter was just an extraordinary liar.

You can put in safeguards, and we ought to put in safeguards about attribution to sources and the use of ombudsmen and some other things that newspapers are now experimenting with to address this kind of problem.

But, you know, there's only so far you can go with safeguards. Basically, reporters who are going to be honest and have integrity as their highest goal above all others, above any competitive goal, for instance, and in this case it's not that a reporter went just an inch over a line; he was making up things. He was making up places he was and people he talked to. So in a way I think it's more of an aberration than some of the hype that maybe is prevalent in a lot of different news organizations.

This is really quite an extraordinary case.

TERENCE SMITH:

What are some of those safeguards you say that have been put in place?

SUSAN PAGE:

Well, ironically, Karen Jurgensen put in an important safeguard when she became editor in 1999.

People who are quoted in USA Today are randomly sampled by letter: "Were you quoted accurately?" I can say as a reporter that took me aback when they began to do that. I didn't really like that; didn't she trust us? But in retrospect, I think that's a good safeguard so people have some recourse, so there's some check on whether people are being quoted accurately. I think you also need to give sources…

TERENCE SMITH:

And yet, apparently that didn't work in the case of Jack Kelley.

SUSAN PAGE:

Of course, Jack Kelley was doing very dramatic stories from faraway dangerous places. And it's hard to do a fact check when you're quoting Mohammed in the desert about his intentions to kill Americans. How do you do a fact check on that? That's what goes back to the integrity that you need to have at your core to be a good journalist.

TERENCE SMITH:

Geneva, has this become widespread among other papers, this idea of doubling back, checking on reporters' work, checking with sources? I know there's even technology that editors can use now to check for plagiarism.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

Exactly.

TERENCE SMITH:

By the Internet, going in and determining and looking for repeated phrases and paragraphs.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

I think it has become more widespread after the Jayson Blair/New York Times scandal. Newsrooms across America went back and looked at their ethics codes, in many cases strengthened them, brought them out into newsroom discussions, reminded everybody about them. The New York Times named a public editor, a kind of an ombudsman, after years of having stood against the need for an ombudsman.

I would like to believe that would spread. We still have fewer than 40 out of 1,500 daily newspapers, and we need more ombudsmen.

TERENCE SMITH:

There are hundreds of editors, American newspaper editors in Washington this week for an annual meeting…

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

Indeed.

TERENCE SMITH:

I know you were with some of them. Are they talking about this? What are they saying?

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

They surely were. I was with them last night just after the news of Karen's departure came out. Of course, it was on the tongues of every one.

One thing they're saying you cannot be so proud as to believe it could never happen in my newsroom. I don't know any editor who thinks that. For one thing, we have had these kinds — I think you're quite right that Jack Kelley is an extraordinary example.

This is not happening throughout America, nor has it throughout history, but we have had plagiarists, we've had fakers, you know. And we will again. But I think the conversation is a rededication to ethical standards and to do more than just memos and meetings, but really to put into play some things.

SUSAN PAGE:

You know, control also the use of unattributed material. I think that's important, not that you don't use blind sources — sometimes you need to — but to have some controls there. And also to have a recourse — an ombudsman or a reader's representative — or some places people can go if they think the paper has been wrong and be heard.

TERENCE SMITH:

What response have you had at USA Today, from the public, from the readers of the paper to this whole thing?

SUSAN PAGE:

You know, I've been out a fair amount talking to voters in Missouri and in Florida since this story broke. I don't get much feedback from readers about it.

Regular readers of USA Today are aware of it. I've heard some readers praise the paper for being straightforward about trying to correct the stories that we think were wrong.

TERENCE SMITH:

I have heard critics say — and either of you, I'd be interested what you think — that as a matter of proportion, the Jack Kelley scandal was, is more damaging to USA Today in its way than that of Jayson Blair at The New York Times.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

Well, Jack Kelley was writing bigger stories. Jack Kelley was the star reporter at USA Today in many ways. And Jayson Blair was a young upstart of a reporter. I think the kinds of stories he was doing, you know, talking about a Pakistani youth with a picture of the Sears Tower and saying, "this one's mine," that's deeply hurtful. I mean, some of these stories were, I think, of a larger scale. So in some ways it makes a bigger difference.

SUSAN PAGE:

I think it's more damaging to USA Today. We're a young paper. I think we're maybe the youngest daily newspaper that's publishing in this country — started with no circulation and not much respect. We've really worked hard to become a better newspaper, a more serious newspaper. And I know that the, I know that I and the people I work with are very determined not to lose that because of Jack Kelley.

TERENCE SMITH:

Geneva, you've been an editor of the Des Moines Register, a major paper in this country. If someone comes to you with a story like that, that you just cited, pointing to the Sears Tower saying, "this is mine," doesn't something go off in your head? Doesn't some part of you say, you know, that's too good to be true?

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

Too good to be true. You know, I'd like to believe it would have. In fact some things did. We've all read that one editor took out the part about the eyes still blinking when heads were rolling. It sounded too good to be true. One thing I think we really need to talk about is that not only the editors are in town but the publishers are in town.

And publishers have got to worry about staffing newsrooms adequately so that there are enough editors to give questions like that thoughtful consideration and so that people don't feel so stretched that this culture of fear that some people have alluded to arises. And I would hope that Craig Moon would think that one of the most —

TERENCE SMITH:

— the publisher of USA Today —

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

Thank you — would think one of the most important things he would do here is be sure that his newsroom is adequately staffed. I hope he'll come forward soon and show us the report. Publishers are here, too.

TERENCE SMITH:

Well, we'll see. There's a report to come and then possibly things to come after that. Susan Page, Geneva Overholser, thank you both very much.

GENEVA OVERHOLSER:

Thank you.

SUSAN PAGE:

Thank you.