St. Louis: Woman pulled a fast one; reporters, editors didn't do their jobs

Quite a big oops in St. Louis. A feel-good Easter story turned out to be a big hoax.


** To our readers

03/30/2008

On the front page of last Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, we published the story of a woman identified as Virginia Gillis. She was featured in an Easter story in which she described in detail a past of victimization, homelessness and despair followed by recovery and repair.

We have since learned that a number of the details in that story were inaccurate. Further, our verification procedures were not followed during the reporting and editing process. In short, this story did not meet our standards for publication. **

More...

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/48AB23BAC663E9248625741D00098591?OpenDocument

 

What that leaves me with is *why* didn't they follow their usual reporting and editing practices with this story?

 

Not the first time, not the last time. We're far too gullible when it comes to these tear-jerker stories around a "holiday."

 

So let me get this straight. They didn't do their jobs because they wanted to believe her?

Well, shit.

 

Don't know about you, but I have never asked a source for their driver's license.

People will lie and make crazy stuff up for lots of reasons -- and no reason.

Be careful out there.

 

I think we all see that too often. Those feel-good holiday stories are often rather useless, anyway. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later - and who knows? It probably has on several other occasions.

 

Never trust anyone who says they turned their life around and got their shit together, for starters.

 

When I watch the news, I assume many of the people who see a shooting in a not so great area of town are giving fake names.

If they don't give their names or phone numbers to schools or to the police, what makes you think they are going to be honest with the local news?

That said, I saw a man on the news whose name was Muhammad Ali, and I am 100 percent sure when he was born in India (possibly?) that his parents had no idea who was the heavyweight champ.

 

I couldn't have said it better.

Well, actually, I could have: Shee-eeeeee-it!

 

I thought it was a half-assed apology on the part of the PD.

 

This guy says everything's fine:

 

Nope, never asked for a driver's license here, either.