comScore

The Intercept Issues Mass Correction After Writer Caught Fabricating Quotes

The_Intercept_2015_LogoNews website The Intercept issued a mass retraction and correction Tuesday after admitting that one of their writers regularly fabricated sources and impersonated sources with fake Gmail accounts.

“An investigation into [Juan Thompson]’s reporting turned up three instances in which quotes were attributed to people who said they had not been interviewed. In other instances, quotes were attributed to individuals we could not reach, who could not remember speaking with him, or whose identities could not be confirmed,” Editor-in-chief Betsy Reed announced in a note to readers.

“Thompson went to great lengths to deceive his editors, creating an email account to impersonate a source and lying about his reporting methods,” she continues, noting that he even created a fake email account to impersonate Reed herself.

The news website, which is best-known as the home of controversial journalist Glenn Greenwaldcompletely retracted a piece by Thompson claiming that Dylann Roof shot up an African-American church in Charleston after Roof’s crush dated a black man. Thompson’s “source” for that story was Dylan’s cousin “Scott,” a person the Roof family says does not even exist.

Thompson also stands accused of fabricating quotes from almost a dozen “sources,” including Trump supporters, #BlackLivesMatter activists, and a college professor. One correction strongly implies that Thompson was also guilty of plagiarism, saying, “We have also added attribution to language taken from the news website Philly.com.”

[Image via screengrab]
——
>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

  1. Mediaite
  2. The Mary Sue
  3. RunwayRiot
  4. LawNewz
  5. Gossip Cop