USA Today reporter Jack Kelley resigned last week amid allegations that he plagiarized and fabricated stories submitted to the publication. One of the stories in question is this one (I can't find a link to it at USA Today, so this will have to do for now):
Israeli Extremists Take Revenge on Palestinians
By Jack Kelley
USA Today
September 4, 2001
HEBRON, West Bank – After a quick prayer, Avi Shapiro and 12 other Jewish settlers put on their religious skullcaps, grabbed their semi-automatic rifles and headed toward Highway 60. There, they pushed boulders, stretched barbed wire and set tires afire to form a barricade that, they said, would stop even the biggest of Palestinian taxis. Then they waited for a vehicle to arrive. As they crouched in a ditch beside the road, Shapiro, the leader of the group, gave the settlers orders: Surround any taxi, “open fire†and kill as many of the “blood-sucking Arab†passengers as possible.
A rebuttal to this nonsense was published here, among other places. But it's nice to see that USA Today is now acknowledging that Kelley had no evidence to back up his story.
The newspaper spent less money, effort and time trying to verify at least two of the seven stories Memmott [the reporter assigned to investigate Kelley] said it earmarked for investigation. The stories were among the work that made Kelley a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.
In one, published Aug. 10. 2001, Kelley recounted how he "happened to be walking near the restaurant" where a suicide bomber struck moments later. Kelley wrote that he saw the bomber before the attack and describes him in detail.
Another story, published Sept. 4, 2001, contains an account of an attack on Palestinians by 13 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Memmott said he could not find anyone with first-hand knowledge of the attack.
When asked for sources to verify both stories, Memmott said, Kelley pointed him to one man: an Israeli undercover agent Kelley says was with him at the restaurant bombing earlier that year. Memmott said he was called by a man who identified himself as the Israeli agent.
The man said he was with Kelley outside the bombed restaurant but was not during the attack by settlers. Memmott said he never learned the full name of the man. He said he is certain only that he spoke with someone calling from Israel.
Jurgensen said editors believe Kelley's account of the restaurant bombing because his direct supervisor remembers Kelley calling her shortly after the bombing. She and Gallagher said confirming the Jewish settlers story appears to be impossible.
The "restaurant" in question was the Sbarro pizzaria on the corner of King George and Yaffo Streets in the center of Jerusalem, and it was one of the worst suicide bomb attacks to take place in Israel to date. Kelley's full story is here, and it was very sympathetic. At the time, I recall some speculation that the "Extremists Take Revenge" story was a payback or an attempt to seem balanced because the Sbarro story was "too pro-Israel." But the outrage over the "Extremists" story didn't have legs. By the following week, people were preoccupied with other things.
