What to think about George Stephanopoulos?Some years ago, I worked with a young man who would later become momentarily infamous, during the season of Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, when he was found to have fabricated aspects of stories for a very high-profile national news outlet. I found all those episodes maddening: As a writer for small community newspapers, I was used to being blown off by sources, accustomed to politicians and other worthies refusing to return my calls. But if you’re a writer for the Washington Post or The New Yorker, people pick up the phone when you ring.

There’s no excuse for the small fry, and there’s really, really no excuse for bigfoot reporters from the majors. Call me a snob, but I have always been mystified when fabrications show up in the pages of prestigious publications such as the New York Times or The New Republic. I recently taught a seminar at Hillsdale, partly on the subject of Rolling Stone’s shameful, fictitious account of a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia, a crime that did not in reality happen.

How does this sort of thing make it into print, not in some backwater weekly but in a magazine with real editorial resources?

Source: Kevin D. Williamson, www.nationalreview.com