Filipino journalists have a term for that

And another reporter bites the dust for allegedly putting fake information in his stories. Filipino journalists have a graphic term for that.

Wired News reporter faked information for stories
Source: Journalism.co.uk

Wired News has removed three stories from its website after doubts were raised about the authenticity of the sources for each piece.

All three articles - from July and June this year - were written by freelance space reporter Philip Chien citing "space historian" and "aeronautical engineer" Robert Ash as a source of information. Often quoting directly from him.

Suspicions were raised as he had submitted a draft piece quoting a different source, Ted Collins, supplying his contact details to meet Wired's editorial policy.

Wired reported that management then contacted Ash - professor of aeronautical engineering at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia - who denied being a space historian and ever being interviewed by Chien.

Wired broke news of Chien's alleged deception, and its own investigation, by running a story on its website in which it claimed Chien admitted setting up a Hotmail account for Collins - a man he later said died in 1997.

Last year Wired was forced to amend a number of stories on its website written by Michelle Delio after it was unable to confirm some of her sources.

It also took the unusual step of adding notes to certain stories and asking its readership if it were able to identify unatributed sources in stories written by Delio.

Wired claimed its investigation found that emails from the Collins' Hotmail account were sent from Chien's computer, as were postings praising Chien's book about the Columbia shuttle disaster.

It was also alleged that computer was also found to be the IP address of Hotmail messages purportedly from Robert Stevens.

Chien had used a "NASA engineer" called Robert Stevens as a source in at least three articles he had published in newspapers.

Wired reported that Chien - who in total had written seven articles for the publication - admitted creating the Ted Collins Hotmail account to mislead editors.

However, he denied using false names to promote his work and told wired in an email that Collins died in 1997, but he liked his quotes so much he wanted to use them posthumously.

Chien later told Associated Press that he was not given sufficient opportunity to defend his sourcing before his articles were pulled.

"Things have been distorted and taken out of context, but I don't want to say anything more than that," he said.