Australia - Blogsphere claims another journalist

Citizen journalism is far more powerful than any of us imagined. We still have a long way to go but there are some hopeful signs.

I just posted a link to a Tim Blair post concerning how the BBC should learn from ABC on how to correct a story.

Another Tim Blair post shows what BBC reporters should learn from the Australians.

Sunday Age columnist and Jesse Macbeth dupe Terry Lane has resigned:

There are three unforgivable sins in journalism: plagiarism, fabrication and failing to check the facts. I am guilty of the last.

It came about like this. My attention was drawn to what looked like a professionally packaged documentary video in which “US Ranger” (I now know that that is bogus) Jesse Macbeth recounts his experiences as a soldier in Iraq, where he claimed to have served for 16 months.

I was completely taken in by his fake sincerity. That, I suppose, could be excusable for any person with no responsibility to check bona fides, but in my case I fell for it because I wanted to believe it. That is inexcusable. As soon as I was made aware of what I had done I offered my resignation to Peter Fray, the editor of The Sunday Age. I have embarrassed the newspaper for which I have written since the first issue which makes me ashamed.

There are no excuses. No extenuating circumstances. Opinion writers are not expected to be objective and disinterested but that doesn’t give licence to be indifferent to facts. I should have checked.

I'm not aware the BBC ran a report on MacBeth but they have ran similar stories by Iraq Veterans Against the War. However, the BBC failed to report on MacBeths's hoax.

Here's my original post on MacBeth.

Lane's failure to check facts, which prompted him to resign, pales in comparison to the misdeeds of the BBC. Many at the BBC should resign or be fired for some of their actions - just as the two men at the top were.
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