As the summer takes full effect, the University of Hawaii’s KaLeo newspaper admitted finding 29 fabricated sources in articles written by former news editor Kris DeRego.
Hawaii’s KGMB9.com reported:
The 2-page correction in Wednesday Ka Leo newspaper doesn’t identify the reporter who made up the quotes, but former editor-in-chief Taylor Hall tells us it was Kris DeRego, who had been with the paper for three years, until last month.
“The story is not fake. The story is real. He would just have four people in it and one was fake,” said Hall.
DeRego’s alleged fictitious reporting began to unravel when an advisor for the paper was reading the paper one day and a quote popped out that seemed too good to be true. The advisor said he dug deeper and found a pattern of lies.
From Jan. 2008 to May 2009, the paper said it found 26 stories that had fabricated quotes. The existence of 21 people quoted as students could not be confirmed and eight others had similar names but were not enrolled at the time, according to the paper.
“Who is going to fabricate one person, to go through the trouble of working on the story and talking to people and then make up one person out of the blue? It’s not necessarily something that easy to catch,” Hall said.
If DeRego looks familiar it’s because he’s made headlines before. It was another newspaper story about him that tanked his 2006 candidacy for the Board of Education.
In the weeks before the election, the Star Bulletin reported accusations against DeRego of sexual abuse and theft. A former employer said he stole $8,000 mostly in liquor. Another newspaper that endorsed him for the BOE seat withdrew the endorsement and DeRego lost the electon.
Another sad day for college journalism.
your not supposed to make up sources? Oh Shoot.
I kid, I kid.