Monday, August 29, 2005
The Chicago Tribune this weekend had the tale of the Southern Illinois University Daily Egyptian student newspaper and the word that they had been duped with a completely false story.
Word that Sgt. Dan Kennings had been killed in Iraq crushed spirits in the Daily Egyptian newsroom. The stocky, buzz-cut soldier befriended by students at the university newspaper was dead, and the sergeant's little girl--a precocious, blond-haired child they'd grown to love--was now an orphan.
They all knew that Kodee Kennings' mother had died when Kodee was about 5. The little girl's fears and frustrations about her father being in harm's way had played out on the pages of the Daily Egyptian for nearly two years, in gut-wrenching letters fraught with misspellings, innocent observations and questions about why Daddy wasn't there to chase the monsters from under her bed.
It turns out Daddy didn't exist. And neither did Kodee.
The Daily Egyptian then had an apology to its readers along with a list of links to articles previously published with a reference to either of the Kennings.
In the course of checking out the details, a troubling problem appeared: The story wasn't true. What began as a nightmarish possibility became impossible to deny. There was no record with the Department of Defense of the death.
The father who was called Dan Kennings was not killed in Iraq. We checked with central command in Baghdad. There was no Dan Kennings in the 101st Airborne. No Dan Kennings in the entire Army.
The Tribune then has a follow-up:
On Friday, the day the story came to light, the Daily Egyptian newsroom was deluged with phone calls from national TV networks and reporters across the country. Eric Fidler, the newspaper's faculty adviser, said the widespread attention was a shock to the students.
"It's an awful lot of pressure for people who are in their early 20s and going to school to cope with," he said. "There's still a great deal of confusion over the facts of the case. We still don't know exactly what happened." The Daily Egyptian has reaction from the SIU campus today and a story about how the girl says that Reynolds gave her gifts. They also have a telling story from the former Daily Egyptian reporter who broke the story.
During a six-hour interview at his aunt and uncle's home in Evansville, Ind., 25-year-old Michael Brenner called himself a "bad journalist" and said he is gullible and naïve. In hindsight, Brenner says he should have realized that some things just weren't adding up.
"Looking back, it just seems so obvious," said Brenner. "The explanations and stories all sound so stupid now."
A clearly distraught Brenner told a story that at times contradicted Jaimie Reynolds' version of events and at times was inconsistent with his own version.
"The truth has some holes, but I'm not going to lie," Brenner said.
And more reaction from around the Midwest today:
Chicago Tribune: "Hoax ripples beyond SIU"
Northern Star (Northern Illinois University): "Egyptian raids empty tomb"
Daily Ilini: "SIU newspaper: when scoop turns to dupe"
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Staff of student newspaper looks back on mistakes in 'Kodee' hoax"
Brenner, the reporter who broke the story, had a sports internship at the Post-Dispatch.
"We've seen no proof that Brenner had any knowledge the columns were fake," Editor Ellen Soeteber said. Still, she said, the Post-Dispatch plans to review his work for the newspaper "as a pro forma matter."
10:03:00 AM
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