USA Today reporter resigns over false reports

Created sources and quotes: A journalist from the American daily “USA Today” resigned, and the newspaper withdrew from its website twenty articles that Thursday expressed “regret” and affirmed its editorial and ethical principles.

After receiving a request to correct an article, “USA Today” launched an “audit on the work of Gabriella Miranda,” one of its journalists, according to a press release posted on its website.

This internal investigation condemned “that some of the individuals cited are not connected to the organizations cited and appear to be inventing them,” the newspaper denounced.

USA Today also found that “quotes from other people cannot be independently verified and that some articles contain quotes that should have been attributed to others.”

As a result, the newspaper removed 23 articles from its website and other platforms because they “did not meet our editorial standards”.

USA Today emphasized that it “does its best to be accurate and factual in all of its content” and said, “We regret this situation.”

The newspaper pledged to publish some basic journalistic rules such as checking sources and facts, “We will continue to strengthen our principles and processes for reporting and editing.”

Offensive headlines also appear on the site and the journalist has “resigned her position as reporter” for the newspaper and USA Today, owned by the Gannett Group, the premier domestic press in the United States.

Gannett was acquired in November 2019 for about $1.2 billion by another US media group, New Media Investment Group, to form a powerhouse of more than 250 different publications.

Once the daily regional and local press in the United States was flourishing and so diverse, it has suffered terribly from successive crises, notably the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2010, cases of plagiarism and forgery also proliferated in reputable newspapers such as The Washington Post and New York Times and led to the departure of the offending journalists.