Virginia Reporter Fired Over Fabrications

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Richmond Times-Dispatch said Saturday it fired a reporter for fabricating part of a story and has begun investigating his other work.

Paul Bradley, 51, who worked in the newspaper's northern Virginia bureau, was dismissed Friday, the newspaper reported.

The article, published May 17, was intended to gather reaction in Herndon to President Bush's speech on immigration.

Bradley's fabrications, the Times-Dispatch said, included an interview that did not occur with the director of a center for day laborers and the misrepresentation that he had visited the center by using a Herndon dateline.

Managing editor Louise C. Seals said the director of the center alerted the newspaper to the fabrications.

"What I did was wrong and an indefensible journalistic sin," Bradley said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. "I cut corners to put some color into a story and I am now paying a dear price."

Bradley apologized to readers but said "the punishment far exceeds the crime."

Somebody call the WHAAAmbulance.

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