US papers pay the price for confusing fact and fiction: The newsroom celebrations for [last] afternoon's Pulitzer Prize announcement will mark the end of a fraught year for the US newspaper industry, as publications large and small have struggled with questions of credibility and heightened mistrust. [...]
Instances of plagiarism and fabrication have been reported from Connecticut to Chicago, from Washington to Georgia. Most recently, USA Today, the nation's biggest paper, said it had strong evidence that Jack Kelley, a former foreign correspondent, had faked parts of at least eight big stories, including one that made him a Pulitzer finalist in 2002.
