Village Voice Article Critical of For-Profit Colleges Was Faked

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Anthony Pina, Jan 10, 2011.

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  1. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    From this morning's edition of Inside Higher Education:

    Article Critical of For-Profit Colleges Was Faked, 'Voice' Admits


    The Village Voice said last week that it had withdrawn an article highly critical of for-profit colleges after concluding that its author -- a freelance journalist who graduated recently from Columbia University's journalism school -- had faked parts of it. The Voice said it had pulled the article, "For-Profit Blues" -- which focused on New York City school teachers who had reportedly accumulated significant debt while attending career colleges -- from its website after concluding that the author, Rob Sgobbo, had fabricated a student and failed to talk to several key sources. Sgobbo won an award for education reporting in getting a master's degree from Columbia last spring.
     
  2. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    It's the bang wagon effect. When a trend hits everyone wants to get some of the action.
     
  3. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    This guy's career as a journalist should be over, forever.
     
  4. Bill Huffman

    Bill Huffman Well-Known Member

    What's wrong with trying to make the information a bit more interesting?






    JOKE:laughing:
     
  5. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

  6. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    What I really don't get is how he thought he would get away with it. I hope one of these days we can get a statement from the guy.
     
  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Like you could believe him!

    -=Steve=-
     
  8. SurfDoctor

    SurfDoctor Moderator

    Doesn't this seem to imply that the guy wanted to write a scathing piece delineating the evils of for-profit schools, yet was not able to come up with enough facts to support his attack? And as b4cz said, it's sort of a bandwagon thing where it has become fashionable to trash profit schools?
     
  9. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    __________
    :iagree:
     
  10. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Very true. He could have simply followed the pattern of most of the articles that I have read on the subject: Reproduce articles previously written without providing any new information and word it as though you were writing something new. His problem was that he was trying to inject some new data to back up his opinion and that data was, in fact, made up.
     

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