On Jan. 21, Gov. Parris Glendening visited Baltimore on a "fact-finding mission" about lead-paint poisoning,
The Sun reported the following day. After "addressing community leaders" at a West Baltimore church,
Sun staffers Jim Haner and Timothy B. Wheeler wrote, the governor "stepped into the crowd to chat" and "got an earful" from the Rev. Douglas Miles, a leader of the church-based activist group Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD). "I told him two of my grandchildren have been lead poisoned in rental houses in the city," the reporters quoted Miles as recounting.The event was front-page news, in keeping with
The Sun's drumbeat of commendable coverage of the city's lead-paint crisis. The only problem was, it didn't happen. There was no fact-finding mission; as the paper's Maryland section reported that same day, Glendening was in town for a previously scheduled meeting with BUILD, a session taken up largely with addressing Baltimore's drug problem. And far from giving the governor an earful, Miles says he never spoke with Glendening about lead paint that day.
After getting calls from Miles and from Glendening's office, The Sun printed a correction on Jan. 25, explaining the circumstances of the gathering and acknowledging that Miles' quotes were collected at a separate interview, not at the BUILD meeting.
End of story, as far as The Sun is concerned. "An error was made. In this business we make mistakes sometimes," Haner says. "When we do, we live with them and learn from them." Managing editor William Marimow takes a similar tack, noting several errors he made during his own 18-year reporting career—and pointing out a few recent ones in this column.
But the mistakes Marimow referred to in his own work and mine were factual ones, like getting a name wrong. Certainly, such errors are serious and regrettable. But it's one thing to misspell a name; it's quite another to misrepresent facts and quotes, as Haner and Wheeler appear to have done.
Miles, in an interview with me, goes so far as to assert that "quotes attributed to me [in the article] are fabrications by Mr. Haner." The minister says he did tell Haner about his grandchildren, but never used the words "I told him," which clearly imply a conversation between Miles and Glendening on the subject at the meeting. The story also clearly implies that the meeting with BUILD—indeed, Glendening's trip to the city—was prompted by the lead issue (which is to say, by The Sun's coverage of the lead issue). Lead paint did come up at the gathering, Miles says: Another minister raised it for "about 30 seconds."
All this is, on the face of it, a severe breach of journalistic ethics. What's particularly troubling is that this breach comes in the service of The Sun's ever-more-vigorous program of self-congratulation. Thanks to several high-profile investigative series, the daily has become accustomed to affecting public policy, and its reporters and editors make sure to pat themselves on the back for that in follow-up stories. Readers have become mind-numbingly familiar with the phrases like, "The move came after The Sun documented. . . ." But then, such claims aren't only for the readers' benefit; they're also directed at Pulitzer Prize judges, who place a premium on reportage that's brought demonstrable results.
Even in a best-case interpretation of the incident—the BUILD meeting was closed to the press, and presumably the reporters had to reconstruct events as best they could—Haner and Wheeler puffed a minor step in the lead-paint fight into a front-page article designed to showcase the paper's influence. The story did not overtly take credit for the meeting, but it did place Glendening's visit to Baltimore in the context of Annapolis' response to The Sun's coverage. And the paper's editors aren't going to question any reporting that follows the self-promotional program—even if that reporting is contradicted in another section of the same day's issue.
In the past 14 months, The Sun has fired obituary writer Robert Hilson for fabricating a quote and classical-music critic Stephen Wigler for plagiarizing from a reference book. Marimow says this situation is different: "There's no malice aforethought." Maybe so. But Sun staffers are understandably concerned about the situation. The paper's reputation rests on its credibility; if readers can't trust high-profile, front-page stories to be truthful, what should they expect from stories given less time and attention?
Haner and Wheeler's reporting inaccuracies also come fast on the heels of the firing of Marilyn McCraven, the Op-Ed page editor. McCraven won't discuss her dismissal, and deputy editorial-page editor Stephen Henderson will only confirm that "she's no longer with the paper," but the disparity in treatment has some staffers wondering about a double standard.
In truth, McCraven worked for publisher Michael Waller, whereas Haner and Wheeler report to Marimow and editor John Carroll. It's frightening to think that the editorial page, which by its very nature is self-serving, has higher standards than the newsroom, which purports to bring unbiased news to the people. 
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