Chico State: Chico-gate?

First of all, a sincere congratulations to the Los Angeles Times on its Pulitzer wins, announced today. In particular, the King/Drew series was, I thought, an exemplary piece of investigative journalism.

Now, back to the article last week about fraternity hazing at Chico State University, which, as has been widely noted, was riddled with errors. LAObserved links to a piece in the Chico Enterprise-Record:

In the L.A. Times story, six students are quoted. Only one is identified with a first and last name. In a town with more than 15,000 university students, the reporter could get only one student to talk on the record? That’s lazy. Or worse.

Readers are left to wonder if the people quoted are even real … like the 5-foot-2 brunette who posed for Playboy (let’s see, she posed naked in a national magazine but wouldn’t give her name to a reporter?) or the 19-year-old who walked “a bit unsteadily” out of Crazy Horse (where it’s tough to get in, I hear, with a fake ID), but was able to deliver insightful quotes despite her age and condition, that fit just perfectly into the story.

There’s one obligatory quote from an appalled resident, described as “Paul Greene, a salesman who was born and raised in this town of 35,000.”

He was quoted as saying, “I went to the funeral just stood outside. You hear about such things, but seldom the details. Somebody died. Somebody ought to go to jail for that.”

Just a few problems with the quote. There was no funeral in Chico. It was three hours away, in the Bay Area. I doubt a stranger would drive to it. Second, there were plenty of details in the local media, more than some people wanted to know. Third, I couldn’t find a Paul Greene in the phone book or the city directory.

There may be a Paul Greene in Chico. If he spoke to the reporter, Eric Slater, I’m sorry, my mistake.

Slater, the writer of the LAT article, did not return email or phone messages left by the Enterprise-Record.

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