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 KURTZ: USA TODAY REPORTER PANICKED Sat Jan 10 2004 19:49:51 ET When USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley resigned Tuesday after an investigation of his work, many colleagues wondered why he had quit if, as he adamantly maintained, his reports from around the world had been accurate. The reason, Kelley now acknowledges, is that he "panicked and used poor judgment" during the probe. In an effort to prove that he had spoken with a human rights activist in Yugoslavia, Kelley said in an interview, he encouraged a translator who was not present during the 1999 sit-down to impersonate another translator who was there. The woman who agreed to help Kelley called the USA Today journalist assigned to investigate the matter last fall and verified Kelley's account as if she had been there. About two weeks later, Kelley said, he realized the magnitude of his error and confessed to the paper's publisher, executive editor and reporter Mark Memmott, who had received the bogus call. "I resigned because I felt I should no longer work at USA Today because of what I'd done," Kelley said. But he said he stands behind every story he has written, many of them from war zones, during a 21-year career at the nation's best-selling newspaper. He said his bad judgment stemmed from his conviction that the investigation was "a witch hunt to drive me out of USA Today." Editor Karen Jurgensen said Saturday: "I'm confident Jack was treated fairly and professionally throughout the investigation. We have no concerns whatsoever about the quality or fairness of the investigation." |
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