Another controversy in fake news as a Houston Chronicle reporter is out of a job after being caught using bogus sources.
Mike Ward was often sent by the Chron to cover the TNM’s efforts and those related to the Texas GOP and Legislature. Not dissimilar to the rest of the mainstream media which is more focused on promoting a particular political point of view than objectively reporting facts, his stories were never fair, let alone favorable. However, it seems this particular reporter had from time to time crossed the line between biased reporting and fabrication.
Nancy Barnes, executive editor for the Chronicle, had the following to say about the departure of Ward and the discovery of him using sources that could not be verified:
… questions were raised about whether individuals quoted in one of his stories were real people. Our own researchers, after an initial review, had difficulty finding a number of sources cited in Ward’s most recent reports. Ward has insisted that his work was truthful, that his work involved real people, and that we would eventually find the individuals behind his ‘man-on-the-street’ interviews. However, given the questions this review raised, he offered to resign and I accepted that resignation last week.
While Ward’s source fakery was indefensible, and his job-loss justified, there remains still another festering infection in the Houston Chronicle: biased reporting. Now that the paper is looking for a new reporter, let’s hope the replacement will have a little more integrity and that the Chron will take stock of their own issues, committing to merely reporting the news rather than telling their readers how to think about it.
