Glenn Reynolds says he hasn’t been following the whole Jason Leopold, Thomas White, Paul Krugman debacle and links to Leopold’s pathetic defense of his reporting. So, for those wanting to keep score, here’s the brief rundown.
1. Until April 2002, Leopold was a reporter for the Dow Jones Newswires. He claims that he quit to write a book about Enron, but, in fact, he quit right before DJN published the second of a set of corrections to a story Leopold had written about Enron’s executive compensation system.
2. After quitting DJN, Leopold takes to writing stories focusing on whether or not Thomas White — a former Enron executive and current Secretary of the Army — will be forced to resign. These are stories like White Should Go–Now for The Nation and White out? for Salon.Com.
3. In late July, Leopold claims he “hit the jackpot” when a source, former Enron executive Jeff Forbis, gives him highly incriminating e-mail supposedly sent by White to other Enron insiders ordering them to hide losses. Salon.Com runs the story which gets little notice until Paul Krugman also cites the e-mail in a column attacking White.
4. Salon.Com issues a correction noting that seven paragraphs in Leopold’s story were plagiarized from a Financial Times article — inadvertently according to Leopold.
5. Salon.Com pulls Leopold’s article saying that, “we have been unable to independently confirm the authenticity of an e-mail from former Enron executive and current Army Secretary Thomas White that was quoted in the article.”
6. Paul Krugman retracts his use of the alleged White e-mail as well.
7. Leopold writes a long, self-serving defense which claims that the New York Times and Salon.Com are part of some vague conspiracy to protect a Bush administration official. (Because both of those publications are such pro-Bush lapdogs).
Frankly, Leopold is simply not credible. He admits that a) he’s misread Enron documents before, b) he “skirts” the edge of journalism to get his Enron stories, c) the second he saw the e-mail his initial reaction was “jackpot.”
This reads like nothing more than a freelance journalist eager to work his way back into a permanent job who gambled everything on a single sensational and potentially career-making story and, in the process, cut corners and skirted one too many journalistic corner in order to get his story.
Sources:
Web Article Is Removed; Flaws Cited. David Carr, The New York Times, October 4, 2002.
A note from the editors
Why we took down the Tom White story. Salon.Com, October 1, 2002.
White Out? Jason Leopold, Salon.Com, July 15, 2002.
White Should Go — Now. Jason Leopold, The Nation, May 27, 2002.
Salon, Plagiarism, Paul Krugman, and an Unsubstantiated Smear: The strange case of SalonÂ’s Thomas White scoop. National Review Online, October 2, 2002.
Jason Leopold – Shafted By The New York Times. Jason Leopold, Scoop.Co.Nz, October 9, 2002.