Jack Kelly, serial fabrication specialist, allowed USA Today to call him a reporter until 2004 when the newspaper grew tired of referring to Kelly as a journalist and fired him or somewhat more accurately, forced him to resign.

Kelly, a five-time Pulitzer nominee, in addition to fabricating stories also plagiarized material from paper’s competitors, conspired to mislead those investigating his work, filed unsubstantiated expense reports, and made-up events in a speech to Evangelical Press Association.  He had no shame, and naturally he maintained his innocence. It was all simple and honest mistakes.

USA Today began an investigation into Kelly’s work after receiving an anonymous letter that questioned the accuracy of his articles.

Blake Morrison of USA Today who investigated the reporter’s work wrote, “Perhaps Kelley’s most egregious misdeed occurred in 2000, when he used a snapshot he took of a Cuban hotel worker to authenticate a story he made up about a woman who died fleeing Cuba by boat. The woman in the photo neither fled by boat nor died.”

Trivia: I was unable to locate a picture of Jack Kelly.

Source: USA Today, NBC, CBS.