The article, written by Karen Jeffrey, a longtime reporter, told of a Ronald Chipman, 46, and his family from Boston. The Chipmans apparently were oblivious to Veterans Day until they saw the parade. Ms. Jeffrey described the family in detail, including a scene in which the parents used their smartphones to find information about the holiday, creating a “teachable moment” for themselves and their children.

Maybe it was the tidiness of the tale. Or the notion that adults were unfamiliar with Veterans Day. But the article did not ring true to the editor and she set out to find the Chipmans. She searched several databases but turned up nothing. She reported her finding to the editor in chief, Paul Pronovost.

Mr. Pronovost asked the editor — whom he would not name to protect her privacy — to check other recent articles by Ms. Jeffrey. After more people in the articles could not be found, he then asked Ms. Jeffrey for help in locating the Chipmans. Ms. Jeffrey said she had thrown out her notes.

“That’s when the alarm bells went off,” Mr. Pronovost said. He ordered a full review of her work. For three days, three editors pored over a public-records database called Accurint. They examined voter rolls and town assessor records. They checked Facebook profiles and made phone calls. And they concluded that, over the years, Ms. Jeffrey had written dozens of articles that included people who did not exist.

The next day, Dec. 5, Mr. Pronovost and the publisher, Peter Meyer, wrote a front-page apology to their readers.

“In an audit of her work, Times editors have been unable to find 69 people in 34 stories since 1998, when we began archiving stories electronically,” they wrote.

“Jeffrey admitted to fabricating people in some of these articles and giving some others false names,” they added. “She no longer works at the paper.”

The episode shocked those at The Cape Cod Times, which has a daily circulation of 36,000 and Sunday circulation of almost 40,000.

Before the apology appeared, Mr. Pronovost told newsroom staff members what had happened. “Some people had no idea at all, and some probably were shocked by the scope of what we were talking about,” he said in a recent interview in his office here. And some “just simply couldn’t believe” that Ms. Jeffrey would do such a thing.

Ms. Jeffrey, 59, who had been at the paper since 1981, was perceived as reliable. She had covered the police and courts for many years, and there were no questions raised about the people in those stories. It was only her features — about parades, a Red Sox home opener, a road race — that contained fabrications.

Ms. Jeffrey has not made any public statements and did not respond to several requests for comment. Mr. Pronovost said, “I did ask ‘why’ but she didn’t have an answer.”

Her falsifications puzzled some precisely because they involved the easy articles.

“You go to the parade, you get a quote, you put it in the story,” said Matt Pitta, the news director at Qantum Communications, which owns four radio stations in Hyannis and competes with The Cape Cod Times, which is owned by News Corporation. “It’s not like trying to get a quote from an indicted politician who won’t speak to you.”

Many people also wondered how her fabrications could have gone on for 14 years without being discovered. Of course, nonexistent people do not call up to complain. But Mr. Pronovost said that her editors saw no red flags.

Among those most surprised were the law enforcement officers who worked with Ms. Jeffrey.

“She was always fair and accurate,” said Sheriff James M. Cummings of Barnstable County, which includes Cape Cod. Learning that she had fabricated stories, he said, was “like a punch in the gut.”

Detective Lt. Bob Melia of the Massachusetts State Police said that Ms. Jeffrey was a good reporter. “She reported it like it is,” he said. “If we asked her, ‘Can you keep that information out?’ she would say, ‘No, I can’t, it has to be part of the story.’ We respected her.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/us/cape-cod-paper-apologizes-for-reporters-misdeeds.html?partner=rss&emc=rss