Boston Globe columnist asked to resign Associated Press, 06/18/98 23:28 BOSTON (AP) - The Boston Globe's award-winning metro columnist Patricia Smith resigned Thursday after she was asked to leave by the paper's editor, who said she admitted to fabricating people and quotes in four columns this year. ``Patricia Smith is a writer of extraordinary talent and this is a tragic development,'' Matthew Storin, the paper's editor, said in a statement. ``We wish her well and she retains many friends at the Globe, including myself.'' Smith, 42, who is also a well-known poet, could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday. But her agent and attorney, John ``Ike'' Williams, said, ``Patricia has resigned'' and added that she was planning to write a final column about the situation. Globe spokesman Richard P. Gulla said the column by Smith addressing the request for her resignation would be published in Friday editions of the Globe. According to the statement, the fabrications were discovered two weeks ago during a normal review by Globe editors. Smith admitted the fabrications after being questioned by her editor, Greg Moore, the paper's managing editor, Storin said. Fabricated material was found in an April 13 column, ``A Little Girl's Rite of Passage,'' describing a young girl's ``hair pressing,'' Gulla said. Fabrications were also discovered in an April 20 column, ``In The Long Run, Awe Is For Sale,'' about the Boston Marathon, and an April 24 column, ``It All Began With Betrayal,'' about Stephen Fagan, a father accused of kidnapping his two daughters, Gulla said. Fabrications were also found in a May 11 column about a brain tumor victim, ``The Cruel Truth About Cancer,'' Gulla said. The May 11 column quoted a fictitious cancer patient named Claire reacting to news of cancer therapies that showed promise in mice, the paper said. Claire, the centerpiece of the story, was quoted as saying, ``I'm not proud. Right away, I said, `Rub it on my skin, pop it to me in a pill, shoot me up with it.' If I could find a way to steal it, I would. Hell, if I could get my hands on it, I'd swallow the whole ... mouse.'' Earlier this year, Smith - who wrote twice a week for the newspaper - was named as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, journalism's highest honor. Also this year, Smith won the Distinguished Writing Award for Commentary from the American Society of Newspaper Editors for a series of columns published in 1997. None of the questionable columns were included in Smith's Pulitzer application, Gulla said. But Storin said the paper is reviewing whether any of Smith's columns submitted to ASNE - which were also submitted for Pulitzer consideration - have similar problems. ``We haven't had a chance to ask her about them,'' he said. ``We're notifying ASNE.'' Smith began her career as a typist for the Chicago Daily News. She later became a writer for the Chicago Sun Times and joined The Boston Globe in 1990. She was named as a Globe columnist in 1994. She was one of three writers that rotated columns on the front page of the newspaper's metro section. Globe publisher Benjamin B. Taylor called it a ``sad day'' and noted that ``credibility is our most important asset.'' News of Smith's alleged fabrications comes soon after the highly publicized dismissal from The New Republic of associate editor Stephen Glass, who was accused of fabricating material in 27 of 41 articles he had written for the weekly magazine over the past three years. Glass was fired last month after confessing he had ``embellished'' a story about computer hackers. The article ran in the magazine's May 18 issue. Glass did not contest the findings and apologized this week in letters to the magazine's editor and owner. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I N T E R A C T I V E Pass It On Send this story to a friend... | Add it to the Daily User Is this story important? | Related Stories Enter a search term:

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