The Times seems to be pretty strict with their journalists - in the late 1980s, Boris Johnson (he later became Prime Minister) was sacked by the Times because Johnson invented a quote from his godfather, the historian Sir Colin Lucas.
I'm not sure how common this is in the industry- whether lying is a slap on the wrist among some newspapers... Johnson still works as a columnist for other papers.
2. The Times sacking BoJo for lying was before News Corp turned it into a tabloid without editorial standards in the early 2000s
3. That was BoJo's first graduate trainee job after uni - sacking a pimply faced newbie for making up stuff is not a hard decision even if he went to Eton and Oxford...
I don’t know either, and hopefully someone here in journalism can comment on how serious it is to do what Finkel did.
I like how the New Yorker Book Review article (recently on HN [0]) reviewed both the book as well as the author. I thought that was a fair assessment- bringing the prior journalistic issues to light while also discussing the merits of the book.
Fabricating events, people, or facts is pretty much the worst thing a journalist can be accused of, but sadly it's all to tempting for some.
Journalism is hyper competitive, but the reality is proper reporting is an often boring, greulling grind. The remarkable, career-defining stories are so rare most could never dream to break them. Sources almost never provide coherent quotes, and facts sometimes contradict each other. It's an extremely unfulfilling pursuit most of the time.
So it's not too difficult to understand why some reporters might embellish a quote or something small, trying to better illustrate a larger narrative, or perhaps make their piece more appealing to their audience or their colleagues.
Once that line is crossed, they can soon find themselves inventing entire people or scenarios. History is littered with examples, but the reality is we probably only know of the most prominent cases, i.e. those who were caught.
I look at it the same as steroids in professional athletes or white collar crime. Those in the lower echelons are constantly looking for a way to climb the ranks of esteem and further their careers, but the tangible opportunities to make their mark don't often materialize.
In journalism school, I think most programs have at least one ethics course effectively dedicated to studying rather famous instances of journalists disgraced for one reason of another, most often fabrication.
Huge cultural strides have been taken since the days of yellow journalism and so facts are usually vetted by a small team. I think it's usually a matter of one small untruth spawning a network of supporting lies. The coverup is often worse than the crime, as it were.
In a role and industry where credibility is the only currency, it's extremely serious to make any factual error, even mistakenly.
I left the industry more than a decade ago, but can offer the following real-life annecdote. I was almost fired for mistaking one mountain for another on one of my first pieces. It was a weeks-long ordeal of meetings, "trainings," and reprimands both official and casual, and that was a dumb mistake my editor made and I mindlessly agreed with, not even something I introduced surreptitiously, or even with any intent.
In reality, the entire article could be thoroughly vetted, and Finkel may well have made a full "recovery" and rededicated themselves to the truth, but fabricating facts at that level is unforgivable.
I'm not sure how common this is in the industry- whether lying is a slap on the wrist among some newspapers... Johnson still works as a columnist for other papers.