Cape Cod Times / Merrily Cassidy

Karen Jeffrey fabricated people in some of her stories, the Cape Cod Times says.

Updated at 6:42 p.m. ET: A Massachusetts daily newspaper apologized to its readers after an internal investigation concluded that a veteran reporter wrote dozens of stories that included people who don’t exist.

The Cape Cod Times said Karen Jeffrey, 59, a writer for the Times since 1981, “admitted to fabricating people in some of these articles and giving some others false names.”

In a column published Tuesday titled “An apology to our readers,” Publisher Peter Meyer and Editor Paul Pronovost wrote:

Papers have personalities, and no two are exactly alike, but at the end of the day, facts are facts. And a good newspaper holds nothing more sacred than its role to tell the truth. Always. As fully and as fairly as possible.

This is our guiding principle, so it is with heavy heart that we tell you the Cape Cod Times has broken that trust.

The column said Times editors reviewed Jeffrey’s previous work after questions were raised about a source in a story she wrote last month about a Veterans Day celebration. Editors were unable to find 69 people in 34 of her stories since 1998, when the newspaper began archiving stories electronically.

Jeffrey "no longer works for the Cape Cod Times,” the newspaper said.

Jeffrey could not be reached for comment. A telephone message left Wednesday for a listing under her name was not immediately returned.

Meyer and Pronovost added:

We were able to verify sourcing in many stories written by Jeffrey, mostly police and court news, political stories, and recently a series on returning war veterans. The stories with suspect sourcing were typically lighter fare – a story on young voters, a story on getting ready for a hurricane, a story on the Red Sox home opener – where some or all of the people quoted cannot be located.

In a 2011 story about a Fourth of July parade in Cotuit, for example, Jeffrey wrote about a man named Johnson Coggins, described as 88 years old, “the patriarch of the family” and a longtime Cotuit summer resident. Editors were unable to find that name via searches of public records and the local assessor’s database, Meyer and Pronovost said. They also couldn’t locate five other people featured in the story.

Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

The newspaper said an investigation of Jeffrey's work began Nov. 12 when a Veterans Day assignment raised questions among editors. According to the newspaper's account of the investigation, Jeffrey's story began this way:

“CHATHAM – Ronald Chipman and his family were strolling along Chatham's Main Street when they noticed traffic slowed. A crowd of people gathered at the small rotary ahead.

“Flags, uniforms, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The Chipmans were momentarily puzzled.

“'I looked at my wife. She looked back at me. We had the same guilty thought – Veterans Day – and we thought nothing about it except as a long weekend on the Cape until we saw that,' said Chipman, 46, a Boston resident. 'You live in the city and sometimes you forget about things like this – about things still mattering to people,' he said.”

The editors were unable to find the Chipman family. When asked if she could help locate the family, Jeffrey said she could not because she threw away her notes.

An expanded review of Jeffrey’s previous work turned up “dozens of additional stories with suspect sources,” the newspaper said.

Editors also spot-checked other reporters’ work but turned up no questionable sourcing. “We are confident this situation was isolated to Jeffrey,” Meyer and Pronovost wrote.

The Cape Cod Times, a daily newspaper based in Hyannis, Mass., that claims daily circulation of 43,000, serves Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, Mass. It is owned by the Dow Jones Local Media Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation.

The newspaper said editors will now spot-check reporters’ articles more frequently, choosing stories at random and calling sources to verify they exist. Jeffrey's questionable stories or passages of stories will also be removed from capecodonline.com and will be replaced with a note that explains why they were removed.

In a follow-up email, Pronovost told NBC News the newspaper will also reactivate a team to review newsroom policies and practices, conduct training for staff and expand the list of people with access to verification tools.

"This incident heightens our awareness of how badly our credibility can be damaged by anything less than the highest ethical standards by 100 percent of the people. The people who work here are strongly committed to rebuilding the trust we broke – every person I’ve spoken with (and that’s almost everybody in our newsroom) has pledged to do their part to earn our readers’ confidence. This was a painful lesson, but a lesson nonetheless," Pronovost said.

Craig Silverman, founder of Regret the Error, a blog on Poynter.org that reports on media errors and corrections, said Jeffrey is the third "mass fabricator" to be exposed this year:

The first was New Canaan news reporter Paresh Jha, who fabricated sources and quotes in at least 25 stories, and the second is a former staff photographer for Sun-Times Media, who made up names and quotes for photo essays.

Silverman wrote:

Jeffrey’s offenses stand out for their frequency, and for the length of time she got away with it. Fabrication is always scandalous, but it’s all the more outrageous when someone can get away with it for so long. I imagine Jeffrey’s former colleagues are struck by that as well.

More content from NBCNews.com:

• In 911 call, Belcher's mom begs girlfriend not to die
• Bob Costas: We need to talk about America's gun culture
• Conversion therapists: 'You can't say gay once, gay always'
• West Point cadet quits, cites 'criminal' behavior of officers
• Video: Photographer: ‘No way’ I could have saved subway victim

Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

KPRC

Sarah Tressler appears at a news conference in Los Angeles May 10, 2012. Sarah Tressler is suing her former employer, the Houston Chronicle, after she was fired. Tressler's lawyer, Gloria Allred, says her client's firing was sexually discriminatory.

The former Houston Chronicle reporter who was fired after another publication exposed her second job as a night club stripper announced Thursday she had filed a federal gender discrimination complaint against the paper that let her go.

In her complaint, Sarah Tressler, 30, is asking the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to look into the Chronicle's decision to fire her. Tressler says an editor told her she was let go because she hadn't disclosed her side gig in her job application.

"I was very upset that I was fired because I had been told by many editors that I was doing a good job," Tessler said in a statement. "There was no question on the form that covered my dancing. I answered the questions on the form honestly."

Tressler announced she filed the complaint at a news conference with her lawyer, Beverly Hills celebrity attorney Gloria Allred. Later, Tressler tweeted: "Couldn't ask for anyone better by my side ... So grateful."

The Houston Press, an alternative weekly, first exposed the "double life" of Tressler in a feature story with the headline "Writer by day, stripper by night." It also drew attention to Tressler’s blog — Diary of an Angry Stripper — which included pictures of her scantily-clad self, as well as rich detail from the inside of the gentlemen's club.

Society reporter moonlighting as stripper fired by Chronicle

During her two-month reporting gig, Tressler covered high society, human interest stories, and fashion. She had previously worked as a freelancer for the Chronicle. Tressler "very rarely" worked as an exotic dancer, a skill that helped her pay for college, she said at the news conference, according to local TV station KPRC. 

Tressler said she occasionally went to the club for exercise.

"And I didn't have a gym membership. So, on days off I might just go in there in the afternoon and do a couple stage rotations and knock it out," she said.

KPRC reports that Tressler, who has a master's degree in journalism from New York University, also teaches part time at the University of Houston. 

"Most exotic dancers are female, and therefore to terminate an employee because they had previously been an exotic dancer would have an adverse impact on women, since it is a female dominated occupation," Allred, who is a self-described feminist lawyer, said in a statement.

"Sarah’s work as a dancer is lawful and is not a crime. It does not, has not and will not affect her ability to perform her job as a journalist," the statement read.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Tornado hits high school, topples train in Texas
• Suspected kidnapper dead, 2 girls found unharmed
• Video: Pier collapses during prom photo shoot
• Obama who? Gay marriage foes seek to extend gains
• US priests reportedly behind crackdown on nuns
• Cyclist spots stolen bike on Craigslist, steals it back

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

A 16-year-old boy was charged Thursday in connection with a mob assault on two reporters in Norfolk, Va., where their newspaper waited two weeks before reporting the incident, police said.

The Virginian-Pilot didn’t wait to report the arrest, posting it online shortly after a police news conference.

Norfolk Police Chief Sharon Chamberlin said at the news conference the juvenile suspect, who was not named, was charged with throwing a missile at a vehicle, a felony, two counts of simple assault by mob, destruction of property and participation in a riot, NBC station WAVY reported.

Only a handful of people were involved in the assault on reporters Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami, who are white and who told police they were beaten April 14 by a group of young black men, Chamberlin said.

"At no time in our investigation or in the statements taken from the victims did it appear that this assault was racially motivated," Chamberlin said.

The reporters had left a rock concert at Attucks Theater when they stopped at a red light amid a crowd of about 100 people, they told police. The beating ensued after Forster confronted a rock thrower who likely had responded to seeing Rostami locking their car door, they told police.

Chamberlin said large events at several downtown venues emptied out about the same time.

The police department received criticism for its handling of the case after the story broke in the Pilot May 1, Chamberlin said. The department received comments that "Norfolk is unsafe" and "the Police Department does nothing to fight crime."

She said that is not true and stated that she is proud of their work, WAVY reported.

Pilot editor Denis Finley earlier said the newspaper reported the incident after doing “due diligence” on the story.

Earlier: Questions raised over Virginia newspaper's delay in report of attack on reporter

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Kids' racist hockey tweets put schools in bind
• Bullied gay student faces expulsion over stun gun
• What is torture? Ex-CIA official wades into debate
• Video: 'Jetman' takes spectacular flight over Rio
• Solution found for dead cows stuck in mountain cabin: saws

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk, Va., waited two weeks before reporting that two white reporters were beaten by a group of young black men. And since the story came out, the city’s police department has defended its handling of the case.

Columnist Michelle Washington broke the news of the April 14 attack on reporters Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami in the May 1 edition of the newspaper. 

“Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote.

Washington and a police report obtained by NBC station WAVY indicate the reporters were driving away after attending a rock concert at the Attucks Theater. When they stopped at a red light among a crowd of about 100 people, Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window.

Forster stepped from the car to confront the rock thrower but was punched by him and several other black males, the police report says. When Rostami tried to reach over the driver’s seat and pull Forster back into the car, she was struck in the head, cheek and eye areas by a black assailant standing outside the car, the police report says.

After the pair managed to lock themselves in the car, the crowd thinned and Rostami called 911, police reports said.

The two suffered minor injuries and were treated at the scene by paramedics. They told Washington that a responding police officer did not take witness names and told Rostami to shut up, and that the attackers were probably teenagers from nearby public housing. The officer gave them his card and told them to complete the report on the following Monday.

The 911 call came at 11:08 p.m., Officer Chris Amos, Norfolk police spokesman, told msnbc.com. An officer was there by 11:09 p.m., he said. Other units followed, and their lights and sirens likely caused anyone remaining in the crowd to scatter, he said.

Amos told msnbc.com that the responding officer decided to leave the pair to respond to another call – reports of shots fired amid a crowd – after determining Forster and Rostami were safe and advising them to leave the area. They did come in the following Monday to complete the report, he said.

Watch US News videos on msnbc.com

The officer involved, Amos said, denies the quotes attributed to him in Washington’s story, which he called editorial comment. There was no delay by the police in providing information on the case, he said.

Norfolk police respond to attack 

“From the very beginning we have been actively involved in this investigation," Amos said. "No arrests have been made.”

Many people were on the street late that Saturday because several events got out at once, Amos said. Many in the crowd that Forster and Rostami encountered live in neighborhoods adjacent to the venues and were walking home, not loitering, Amos said.

Amos said he suspected anyone, regardless of race, who had gotten out of a car to confront the rock thrower would have seen the same result.

Virginian-Pilot editor's memo to staff regarding the attack

Forster told Washington he had seen one Tweet linking his case to revenge for Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teen fatally shot by community watch captain George Zimmerman in Florida.

“(Do it for Trayvon Martin),” it said.

Critics accused the paper of burying the attack over race relations. But Pilot Editor Denis Finley, in a memo to the staff obtained by WAVY, said, "We did not cover up anything. We bend over backwards to treat ourselves the same way we would treat any other member of the community. ... We have done our due diligence with the story." 

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Judge: Prosecutor's rejection of gay juror 'shocking'
• George Zimmerman's old Myspace page includes slurs against Mexicans
• Chicago pays $45 million in 3 years to settle complaints against cops
• Maryland court finds pit bulls are 'inherently dangerous'
• NJ mom arrested after allegedly taking daughter, 5, tanning

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

Dan Savage, the "Savage Love" sex advice columnist, has apologized for lashing out at high school students who walked out of a lecture he gave in Seattle two weeks ago, during which he said that anti-gay passages in the Bible should be ignored.

“We can learn to ignore the bullsh-- in the Bible about gay people,” Savage said, “the same way we have learned to ignore the bullsh-- about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullsh-- in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads in the Civil War and justified it.”

While many cheered, dozens of students and advisers walked out of the auditorium at the National High School Journalism Convention on April 13. Savage, co-founder of the anti-bullying It Gets Better Project, called their walk-out “pansyass.”

Savage, the editorial director of the Stranger, an alternative news weekly in Seattle, took to the paper’s blog on Sunday to apologize.  

“I wasn't calling the handful of students who left pansies (2,800+ students, most of them Christian, stayed and listened), just the walkout itself,” he said.

“I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised,” he added. “I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying “motivated by faith”)—because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong.”

Organizers from the National Scholastic Press Association, which organized the convention, issued a statement criticizing Savage's lecture: "In his attempt to denounce bullying, Mr. Savage belittled the faith of others – an action that we do not support. Ridicule of others’ faith has no place in our programs, any more than ridicule of the LGBT community would."

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Teens hit by car -- while tanning on rural road
• Hiker beats hypothermia after 3 days lost in desert
• EPA official resigns over 'crucify' philosophy
• No signs of distress before yacht race tragedy

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

The Pulitzer Prizes board gave a nod to the increasingly online medium of journalism Monday as it announced its 2012 awards, noting online components to print stories. Still, of the 14 journalism awards given, nine went to journalists at daily newspapers.

Surprise winners included the Huffington Post, for national reporting; the Stranger, an alternative weekly in Seattle, for feature reporting; and the online site POLITICO, for editorial cartoon.  

Finalists for The Pulitzer Prizes, based at Columbia University in New York City, are judged by a board made up mostly of editors, publishers and university professors.

In the Letters, Drama and Music category, Manning Marable won a posthumous award for "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention."

The winners are listed below (links take you to the original stories or works):  

Journalism

• The Philadelphia Inquirer won the Public Service category for examining violence in the city’s schools. The board commended powerful narrative and online videos about child-on-child violence.

• In the Breaking News category, the Tuscaloosa News staff of Alabama won for its coverage of a deadly tornado. The board noted the staff’s use of social media to provide real-time updates.

• The Associated Press and the Seattle Times both won the Investigative category, the AP for covering the New York Police Department’s clandestine spying program, and the Seattle Times for stories about a governmental body that moved patients from pain control medication to methadone.

• Dave Kocieniewski of The New York Times won for Explanatory Reporting for his series about how the nation’s rich avoid taxes.

• For Local Reporting, the Patriot-News Staff in Harrisburg, Penn. Won for breaking the story of Jerry Sandusky, the former football coach accused of molesting young boys.

• David Wood of the Huffington Post won the National Reporting award for his stories about the physical and emotional toll war has taken on American soldiers.

• Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times won for what the board called his "vivid reports, often at personal peril, on famine and conflict in East Africa, a neglected but increasingly strategic part of the world."

• Eli Sanders of the Stranger won the Feature Reporting prize for his gripping narrative about a woman who survived an attack in her home that left her partner dead.  

• Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune won for Commentary, specifically her "down-to-earth columns that reflect the character and capture the culture of her famed city."

• In Criticism, Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe won for his film criticisms, which span art house to box office.

• No award was given in the Editorial Writing category (the last time the award was not presented in this category was 2008).

• Matt Wuerker of POLITICO won the Editorial Cartooning prize.

• Massoud Hossaini of the Agence France-Presse won the Breaking News Photography award.

• Craig F. Walker won for Feature Photography for photos of an honorably discharged veteran home from Iraq.  

Letters, Drama and Music

• No award was given in Fiction, the first time since 1977. (Before 1977, however, the Fiction award was not presented every year.)

• Quiara Alegria Hudes won the Drama award for “Water by the Spoonful,” about an Iraq war veteran working in a sandwich shop in Philadelphia. 

• For History, Manning Marable won for his book about Malcolm X.

• John Lewis Gaddis won the Biography prize for his book, “George F. Kennan: An American Life,” about a globetrotting diplomat during the Cold War.

• In Poetry, Tracy K. Smith won for her collection, “Life on Mars.”

• Stephen Greenblatt won the General Nonfiction category for his book, “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern.”

• In Music, Kevin Puts won for “Silent Night: Opera in Two Acts,” an account of World War I that premiered at the Minnesota Opera.

More about the winners is available at the Pulitzer Prizes website.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Romney's hot-mic moment: I'll shrink federal agencies
• Tough for Zimmerman to get fair trail, defense attorney says
• Maryland: A dead snakehead is a good snakehead
• 'Pray in sorrow': Search for 4 missing California sailors called off
• 'He was a good daddy': Father, daughters among 5 killed by tornadoes
• Illinois man drowns in pond following swan attack

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook