14 Journalists Who Famously Fabricated Stories – And Three More Involved In Major Journalism Scandals

Journalism is a tough field. 

While there are more outlets today with much larger budgets than there were even 20 or 30 years ago, competition is still fierce. And the competition to be the best, to write the most exciting story, or to make the biggest waves, is even fiercer.

That struggle has led many to wholly make up sources or quotes, or even entire stories.

Below are 12 journalists who famously fabricated their stories and were subsequently caught.

Stephen Glass

Stephen Glass is perhaps the most famous example of a fabulist, hitting all three notes when it comes to faking stories. He made up sources, he made up quotes for those fake sources, and he made up entire stories. The most famous he fabricated,  titled “Hack Heaven,” led to his ultimate downfall.

As Vanity Fair reported in detail back in 1998, Glass invented a tech company called Jukt Micronics and wrote as if he witnessed its attempt to hire a teenage hacker. When Forbes began questioning the story, The New Republic, which employed Glass and published the story, started digging deeper. No one could find a company called Jukt Micronics, which Glass had claimed was a big California software company.

To aid in his deception, Glass had his brother pretend to be an executive at Jukt in order to sell it as a real company. Glass also created a cheap website for the company on his work computer. He even took his editor to the place where he said the attempted hiring had occurred, yet people there discounted his story. Glass maintained that he was telling the truth for weeks until finally admitting he wasn’t at the conference, but stopped short of admitting he had completely made up the story.

He was ultimately fired by The New Republic and, years later, attempted to become a lawyer, but his past has kept him from passing the bar.

Jayson Blair

Jayson Blair became a star reporter for The New York Times several years after Glass’s fabrications were discovered. In October 2002, however, public officials and others began questioning his reporting in relation to the D.C. sniper and other national stories, the Times reported after its investigation of Blair’s work. 

The paper discovered that he fabricated quotes and lied to editors about being in cities where events happened when he was actually far away in New York City. He also used the work of other outlets to make it look as if he had traveled for stories. Plagiarism accusations were also lodged. 

In one example, Blair wrote about two wounded Marines at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and said one had ”questioned the legitimacy of his emotional pain as he considered his comrade in the next bed, a runner who had lost part of his leg to a land mine in Iraq.” As the Times noted, Blair made up the entire scene, even the claim that he was in Bethesda. He did speak to one of the subjects, but over the phone, not in person. The subject, Lance Cpl. James Klingel, also told Times investigators that he didn’t say most of what Blair attributed to him.

In order to make it appear as though he was really in the location he claimed, Blair used descriptions from other news outlets, such as The Washington Post, without attribution.

Blair resigned from the Times in 2003.

Janet Cooke

Janet Cooke remains the only person ever forced to return the Pulitzer Prize, which she won in 1981 for her expose, “Jimmy’s World,” for The Washington Post. The story profiled an eight-year-old heroin addict in Washington, D.C., referred to as “Jimmy,” whom Cooke described in detail. 

Then-D.C. Mayor Marion Barry launched a search for the young boy, but when he couldn’t be found, Barry falsely claimed the city knew who the boy was and was treating him for his addiction. The mayor announced Jimmy had died soon after.

Cooke won the Pulitzer prize for the story, but two days later, the Post admitted the story was not true. It was also discovered that Cooke lied about her credentials, claiming she had a degree from Vassar College and that she had received a master’s degree from the University of Toledo. She also claimed she had received a journalism award when she worked at the Toledo Blade. In reality, Cooked attended Vassar for only one year and only had a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toledo.

Jack Kelly

Jack Kelly resigned from USA Today in 2004 after an investigation discovered “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.”

The paper’s investigation found that in 2000, Kelly took a photo of a Cuban hotel worker and claimed she had died while trying to flee the

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