The top editor of USA Today said Tuesday the newspaper will investigate any new, specific challenges to the reporting of former correspondent Jack Kelley, who resigned last week.
USA Today’s inquiry into the veracity of several articles was shut down when Kelley resigned Jan. 6 after having acknowledged deceiving editors.
“We’ll look into any specific allegations that arise,” USA Today Editor Karen Jurgensen said Tuesday in an interview with the Baltimore Sun. “We have to let the situation play out. This was a very painful situation for our staff.”
However, the newspaper’s inconclusive review of some of his disputed articles did not lead to any corrections, she said, because its editors did not know what the truth was. “We have to be accurate in our corrections as well,” Jurgensen said. Some people cited as sources by Kelley could not be found. The recollections of others were vague.
“This is the reality of the situation,” she said. “Obviously, given Jack’s actions, it’s tough” to trust him.
In May, the paper started an inquiry after Executive Editor Brian Gallagher received a complaint from a fellow staffer about Kelley’s work from abroad. In one instance, a private investigator confirmed the newspaper’s suspicions: A woman presented by Kelley as a translator who could vouch for one of his articles was an imposter. Only after being confronted did Kelley acknowledge his deception.
Nonetheless, Kelley, 43, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, has stood by the truthfulness of what appeared in print. His lawyer did not return a call from the Baltimore Sun on Tuesday. Kelley’s byline last appeared in the newspaper in October.
As the Sun has reported, several of Kelley’s former colleagues say previous stories sparked deep skepticism from reporters and editors at the newspaper. But Jurgensen said she was not aware of previous allegations against Kelley.
“At no prior time did anyone raise a doubt with Brian or with me,” Jurgensen said Tuesday.
Kelley’s byline appeared in the first edition of USA Today in 1982, and he filed articles from 90 countries.
Reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2001, he wrote a first-person, front-page account about how a last-minute change in lunch plans had spared his life when a suicide bomber struck the restaurant where he otherwise would have dined.
The probe began with an anonymous letter, apparently from a fellow staffer, to Gallagher, calling Kelley “a golden boy” and “star reporter” who “is paid far more than the rest of us.” Likening Kelley to Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter who admitted to fabrication and plagiarism, the letter said Kelley used quotes that are “obviously fake” because they do not “sound like the way people talk.”
In a November letter to Gannett Chairman Douglas McCorkindale, Kelley attorney Lynne Bernabeiaccused the unidentified critic of making “false and malicious charges” and said USA Today had “branded” Kelley “a journalistic criminal.” She wrote that Gallagher and the reporter investigating the matter “have treated Mr. Kelley as if he is `guilty until proven innocent.”‘
Bernabei also wrote that Kelley would sue the newspaper unless it allowed him to return to reporting, apologized and compensated him for legal fees.
But Bernabei said Monday that Kelley now has no interest in pursuing litigation. “It’s astonishing,” she said, “that they chose to launch this huge investigation based on this anonymous letter.”
