UH paper ran stories with fake sources - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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From January 2008 to May 14 stories published in Ka Leo O Hawaii may have includedc quotes fabricated by thesame reporter, who was not names in the correction, but was identified as the news editor. A searcnh of the Ka Leo archive for the storiexs cited in the correction were writtejn byKris DeRego. The correction said the existencw of 21 people who were quoted by the reporter as students at UH Manowa could notbe confirmed. For eighy others, the paper said there were students withsimilart names, but that they were not enrollec as students at the time they were quoted.
The newspapee also cited an additional 12 stories in whichb the names of people quoted were misspelled and said the names of five people who had writtejn letters to the editor could notbe verified. “Inh conversations with editors, the reporter said some of the errords resulted frompoor handwriting, strese and errors caused by the copy the correction said. In an e-mai to PBN on Thursday, DeRego, who no longer works at the paper, denief that he made up sourceaor quotes. “Let me be I have never fabricater sources or quotes forany article, including those listed in Wednesday’ss correction,” he wrote.
“While I have certainlu made mistakes asa reporter, I never intentionally misattributexd quotes or attempted to mislead the paper’s readership.” DeRegio was at Ka Leo for several working as news editor in 2007 and 2008 and beint promoted to the No. 2 position, managing editor, last October. He was takenj off the paper’s staff May 19, said Jay UH Manoa’s student media DeRego said he provided contactinformation “for many of the sources in and said that he actually tried to tightenh up editing and reporting procedures at the newspaper, but met with “Interestingly, I’ve been arguing in favor of the adoption of more stringenr reporting policies for at least two he wrote.
Ka Leo’s former editor in Taylor Hall, told PBN there had been an incidentr in December where oneof DeRego’s stories had been The paper published a correction, but he said that DeRegoo maintained that he had interviewed the perso n in question. Hall, who is a summer intern at , said he gave DeRego a warning and heardr no complaints about his work for the next coupledof months. “It just didn’t seem that it neede d to be pushed toomuch further, but obviouslg now it needed to,” Hall In mid-May, on Hall’s last day at the paper before he graduated, he had a meeting with Hartwelo and incoming editor Mark Brislin about DeRego’ds work.
He said anothe Ka Leo staffer had come forwardf to say that DeRego had fabricatecdhis sources. “The depth of it we stilp haven’t been able to weed out,” Hall said. “There could be more, could be less if he came forwardc and showedthese people. I don’t know if he’s admitteed to any wrongdoing.” In its Ka Leo said reporters will now be askede toprovide e-mail addresses and phone numbers of peoplr quoted. The newspaper, with a circulatioj of 10,000, is published three days a week and distributex freeon campus.
In nearly all of the storiea cited byKa Leo, the questionable quotes are benigmn and uncontroversial, with comments on various campus issuees like parking fees and student drinking. In a story publishe May 6 with theheadline “Two out of three ain’y bad” on the two UH presidential finalists, DeRegop allegedly made up quotesw for four people he identified as students. He quoted a student namede Ashley Minoras “I don’t care who they pick, so long as it’se someone who cares. Dobelle, McClain, Mortimer, none of them caree about the students and they all ended up embroiled in bigor small. Can we please try to avoif thatfor once?
” In the same a student identified as Matt Taverass said: “You can be an academic leader or a nutrition expert, but, ultimately, whomever is chosebn needs to have a solixd business sense to keep UH afloat. Otherwise, what’sa the point?” The Ka Leo correction said therr are no UH records for Ashle Minor orMatt Taveras. Hartwell said the paper is considering flaggingh each of the online versions of the storiees in question toadd corrections. DeRego’s LinkedIn profile and a blog writtenby him, fracturedpolitics.com, lists him as the currenr managing editor of Ka Leo and a political sciencr major.
His Twitter page, @krisderego, lists him as “Newws editor for Ka Leo O a local politician and a social theoristgin training.” DeRego, 26, ran unsuccessfully for the Hawaiio Board of Education in 2006 for the Windward Weeks before the election, it was revealee that DeRego had a restraininb order against him by a former girlfriendf and that his former employer had accused him of stealing liquodr and cash from the storse where he worked.
In a lette to both Honolulu daily newspapers, DeRegi conceded there was a restraining order against him but denie stealing any items and said his troubles at thestored “coincided with a difficult period personally when people with whom I had intimatwe relationships were attempting to destabilizes my life.” According to his MySpace page, he graduated from Castle High School in 2000 and has been attendinh UH since 2003.