LA Times fires Chico hazing story writer

[hoosier]

On April 1, we reprinted a correction from the Los Angeles Times under the headline "Other Than That, the Story Was Accurate." Our headline was inaccurate. Today's Times has another correction on the same story:

On March 31, The Times published a correction of four errors in a March 29 article about controversies arising from fraternity hazing at Cal State Chico. At the same time, editors began a full review of the story, which was published on the front page of the California section. Based on that inquiry, which included a visit to Chico by a Times editor, the paper has concluded that the article fell far short of Times standards.

Beyond the specific errors, the newspaper's inquiry found that the methods used in reporting the story were substandard. The quotations from anonymous sources and from two named sources, a Mike Rodriguez and a Paul Greene, could not be verified.

Additional inaccuracies found during the investigation include the following:

• In describing a hazing death this year, the article said that the victim died after drinking five gallons of water from a "rubber bladder bag." The Butte County district attorney reported that the amount of water exceeded five gallons and that it came from a plastic jug, not a bladder bag.

• The story also reported that the victim was alone at the time of his death. The D.A. reported that this was not the case.

• The article attributed to "medical examiners" the idea that the victim may have experienced a moment of euphoria shortly before his death. That belief has been expressed by the victim's father, who told the Chico Enterprise Record that he based it on his own research. Butte County's district attorney said it does not appear in any medical reports related to the current case.

• The article said that the parents of Adrian Heideman, a hazing victim who died in 2000, showed their son's day planner to hazing expert Hank Nuwer. Nuwer informed The Times' readers' representative that he was not shown Heideman's day planner by his parents; he heard it described by Heideman's father over the phone.

Separate from the March 29 article, a review of an earlier story on the same subject revealed another error. On March 5, The Times reported that eight fraternity members had been charged with involuntary manslaughter. In fact, eight were charged with hazing, and four of them were also charged with involuntary manslaughter.

The writer of both articles, Eric Slater, has been dismissed from the staff.

We'd say other than that the story was accurate, but we don't want to go out on a limb again. Meanwhile, the Chico Enterprise-Record reports that Slater "has retained the services of a wrongful-termination attorney":

"Myself and my attorney are looking over the request [for his resignation] and will get back to the L.A. Times by morning," Slater said Monday.

With his command of grammar, ourselves wonder how he got hired in the first place.
- Opinion Journal