Don’t let facts get in the way of a story.
Via Daily Mail:
The Boston Globe has placed columnist Kevin Cullen on paid leave as an examination of his work is conducted.
The newspaper said Friday it’s asking a third party to conduct the probe but didn’t detail what prompted it.
‘We take seriously any credible assertion about the integrity of our journalism. We are conducting a review, and if the record needs to be corrected in any way, we will do so forthrightly,’ Jane Bowman, a spokeswoman for the Boston Globe, said in an initial statement to WBZ-TV on Friday.
Bowman added: ‘The integrity of each of our journalists is fundamental to our organization. In light of questions that have publicly surfaced, Kevin Cullen has been placed on paid administrative leave while a thorough examination, involving a third party with expertise, is done of his work. We will be transparent with the results of the review.’
The Globe was awarded a 2014 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings the year before. Cullen was a finalist for commentary.
Boston sports radio station WEEI has pointed to what it describes as inconsistencies in Cullen’s coverage.
It notes a column in which Cullen wrote about how horrifying it was ‘to watch as first responders frantically pulled metal barriers’ to get to the injured.
In his initial article about the bombing, Cullen described the scene in detail, writing: ‘It was alternately poignant and horrifying to watch as first responders frantically pulled metal barriers and the flags of so many different countries down into Boylston Street in a desperate rush to get to the dead and the injured on the sidewalk.’
‘Those flags looked like victims, splayed on Boylston Street as the acrid smoke hung in the air.’
But in a subsequent interview with the BBC, Cullen said he was one mile from the finish line when the bombs went off.
Cullen also allegedly fabricated details about the Richard family, whose eight-year-old son was killed in the terror attack, reporting that the boy’s father, Bill Richard, ran the race that day.
They said one of the dead was an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester who had gone out to hug his dad after he crossed the finish line. The dad walked on; the boy went back to the sidewalk to join his mom and his little sister. And then the bomb went off. The boy was killed. His sister’s leg was blown off. His mother was badly injured. That’s just one family, one story.’
According to WEEI, Bill Richard did not run the Marathon in 2013.