Three newspapers cannot verify elements of more than 17 stories written by a Medill student intern following allegations that he fabricated two articles for the journalism school.
Eric Drudis, a fourth-year student who would have received his master’s degree alongside his bachelor’s degree in June, was removed from Medill’s graduate program but remains eligible to receive his bachelor’s degree.
Drudis worked for the Medill News Service, the journalism school’s student news wire, which retracted two of his stories in November after professors could not verify the information in them.
One article described a 9-year-old boy arrested 70 times in the past two years. The other told the story of 15-year-old girl who allegedly punched her prom date for refusing to kiss her. One or both of the stories ran in The Times of Northwest Indiana, The Daily Herald and The Daily Southtown on Nov. 15.
On Nov. 17, the Medill News Service issued a statement saying they were unable to determine whether the articles were true.
“Questions were raised about the veracity of those incidents,” the statement read. “After conducting further investigation, we have been unable to verify the information contained in those stories and believe they should not have been published.”
Drudis did not return several phone calls and e-mails for comment. In December, he told the San Jose Mercury News that he did not fabricate sources for the Medill stories.
“I had a source that I trusted for both stories,” he said. “I did not make up my sources.”
In the aftermath of the incident, newspapers where Drudis has interned began their own investigations into his articles.
After an extensive search, editors of the Mercury News, The (Philadelphia) Daily News and the San Francisco Examiner say they cannot find evidence that more than 30 sources in 17 of Drudis’ stories exist. Drudis interned for the Mercury News this summer and worked at The Daily News and the Examiner in 1999.
Editors at the Mercury News cannot verify sources in five of Drudis’ stories, said Susan Goldberg, the paper’s managing editor. In a memo to her staff, Goldberg said the paper never questioned Drudis’ stories — even though the sources in them often were “incredible.”
In a story Drudis wrote about people contracting sexually transmitted diseases from partners they met on the Internet, the newspaper could not verify that seven of his sources existed.
“We did publish a story that quotes six people, by full name, who are only too happy to tell us how they got sexually transmitted diseases from homosexual flings arranged while trolling on the Internet,” Goldberg said in the memo.
“We all know that most people are reluctant at best to discuss money, sex, sexual preference and disease. To find even one person who will be quoted by name on any of those subjects can be hard; to find six people openly willing to discuss three of those four topics — and to admit to having contracted herpes, chlamydia, body lice and syphilis, among other things — is pretty incredible.”
The Mercury News also cannot verify sources in Drudis’ two stories on all-night dance parties, airport visitors’ reaction to high parking fees and “air rage” aboard commercial planes.
Debi Licklider, an editor at The Daily News, said about 10 sources in six of Drudis’ stories cannot be verified. Drudis wrote 35 stories as a summer intern, she said.
“If someone really wants to make something up, they can,” she said. “That’s just the way it is.”
The newspaper found no trace of Drudis’ sources in voting records, car registrations, business filings, property holdings, Yahoo! People Search and phone books, Licklider said.
Although most people can be found through such methods, she said, that does not necessarily mean that the sources do not exist.
The Daily News published a brief note to its readers Dec. 15 explaining its fact-checking process. Licklider said she does not think the incident will damage the newspaper’s credibility.
“(Drudis) worked very hard when he was here,” she said. “It’s really a very unfortunate situation. We’re much more worried about him than about the reputation of The Daily News.”
Dick Rogers, former metro editor at the Examiner, said he can’t find evidence that nine people quoted in six of Drudis’ 26 articles exist. He said, however, that he is not yet ready to accuse Drudis of fabricating the sources.
“If we can show we misled our readers, we owe it to our readers to tell them,” said Rogers, who is now an assistant managing editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. “But there should be no rush to judgment. I’m not at the point yet where I feel like I can show it.”
Before interning at the Examiner, Drudis worked at the weeklies the Cupertino Courier and the Sunnyvale Sun.
The newspapers’ office manager, Kathy Wrightson, said she has no plans to verify the sources in his stories.
Drudis also wrote at least four stories for The Daily in 1998, including a Focus magazine story that contains several anonymous sources.
Medill administrators declined to comment on the allegations, saying it is illegal to discuss student disciplinary action under the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
Dean Ken Bode said in an e-mail to students and faculty that he hoped the charges would encourage students to reaffirm their commitment to accurate journalism.
“Questions have been raised about the veracity of some stories that were written by a student and disseminated by the Medill News Service in Chicago,” Bode wrote Dec. 1. “We are aware of this situation and are embarrassed by it.”
The Medill News Service gives journalism graduate students the opportunity to cover Chicago news stories and have them published in local papers. Drudis wrote the two articles in question while covering Cook County’s juvenile court.
Medill Prof. Mindy Trossman, co-director of the news service, declined to comment on the allegations.
Whether or not the claims are true, Drudis’ former editors agreed that he would have a difficult time building a journalism career.
“Newspapers have a credibility problem as it is,” former Examiner editor Rogers said. “A lot of people don’t trust us. When someone says a reporter made up a quote, it’s a terrible, terrible thing. It’s hard to hide from that reputation.”
The editors said, however, that they did not think the incident would hurt Medill’s reputation.
Licklider said The Daily News hired a Medill intern last year, this year and would probably hire one next year. She said, however, that she will use the incident as a “cautionary tale” for next year’s interns.
Gamble, Illinois editor of The Times, said he will continue to subscribe to the Medill News Service to complement the paper’s local coverage. He said he remains on good terms with Trossman and Medill Prof. Jim Ylisela and that they were “ripped apart” by the allegations.
“I know these guys are embarrassed by this,” Gamble said. “The only thing you have to sell to newspapers is your integrity and your credibility. If you haven’t got that, who knows?”
