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Magazine Apologizes for Fabricated Articles

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<i> From Reuters</i>

The New Republic magazine apologized Friday for publishing more than 20 articles that were all or partly made up by a former writer, saying it could make “no excuses” for the embarrassing fabrications.

An internal investigation turned up 23 articles by Stephen Glass that contained at least some made-up material, the Washington-based magazine on politics and the arts wrote in an editor’s note of the June 29 issue, which hit newsstands Friday. The magazine, one of the best-known political journals, said in a mea culpa in a previous issue that three articles and part of a fourth had been fabricated by Glass, an associate editor who was fired last month.

The scandal broke when an editor at an Internet publication found that he could not track down a source in a Glass article on computer hackers.

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In its latest issue, the New Republic said the degree of deceit in the Glass articles ranged from a lot to a little.

Three were almost completely made up, while most were “a blend of fact and fiction,” it said.

In a November 1997 “Anatomy of a Policy Fraud” article on the Clinton administration and crime-cutting, Glass manufactured sources such as the “Cops & Justice Foundation,” a Republican poll and “Donny Tye, a former California police officer,” it said.

“We offer no excuses for any of this,” the New Republic wrote. “Only our deepest apologies.”

An attorney for the 25-year-old Glass, Gerson Zweifach, was quoted in the New York Times on Friday as saying his client confirmed the magazine’s findings.

Glass also wrote for Rolling Stone and George magazines. Rolling Stone has gone through Glass articles but has not yet confirmed his anonymous quotes, a magazine spokeswoman said.

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George planned to publish an apology regarding a Glass story on presidential advisor Vernon E. Jordan Jr., the Times said.

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