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

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

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

 

[forever_town]

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

 

[spnited]

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

 

[forever_town]

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

Well, ****.

 

[Ace]

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.

 

[zebracoy]

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

Well, ****.

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.

 

[Ace]

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

Well, ****.

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 **** together, for starters.

 

[93Devil]

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.

 

[Joe Williams]

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

Well, ****.

I couldn't have said it better.

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

 

[Diabeetus]

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

 

[Mighty_Wingman]

This guy says everything's fine:

 

[Rosie]

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.

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

 

[Steak Snabler]

Too bad she didn't say her name was "Heywood Jablome."

 

[Starman]

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

Well, ****.

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 **** together, for starters.

bingo

 

[Steak Snabler]

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

Well, ****.

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 **** together, for starters.

bingo

Yeah, I keep waiting for all those stories about Josh Hamilton's resurrection to blow up in the writers' faces ...

 

[RedSmithClone]

Too bad she didn't say her name was "Heywood Jablome."

That's funny.

Reminds me of a time when our Features Editor ran a stand alone photo in the night on the town section of the tab we run. Guy gave his name as Jack Mehoff. It ran and then we got letters and calls.

The best part was our editor at the time writing an apology column, where he used humor about the whole situation, discussing how he did phone directory searches for Jack Mehoffs nationwide and found plenty of them - some of which lived on some very interesting street names.

 

[HejiraHenry]

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

Because the story was too good to check, that's why.

 

[Rex Harrison]

They were too busy blogging to fact-check.

 

[PeteyPirate]

Just curious, but how far do go to confirm somebody's identity? When I was a reporter, I never asked a source for a driver's license. The story cited above says they did, and she provided them with a fake. Do you ask your sources for ID, and do you then check to see if it's real?

 

[Alma]

Too bad she didn't say her name was "Heywood Jablome."

Or Jack Mehoffer.