Recurring scandals are keeping Southern Illinois University’s student newspaper under the microscope.

The ongoing, high profile investigation of a former editor in chief at the Carbondale campus paper comes after two confirmed incidents of plagiarism at the paper in 2004.

Investigative reports in the Chicago Tribune and a published apology by the Daily Egyptian on Friday brought national attention to the elaborate fabrication revolving around a 10-year-old girl waiting for her Army sergeant father to return from war. Neither dad nor daughter exist.

Jaimie Reynolds, a former SIU student who has already publicly admitted to deceiving the Daily Egyptian news staff, said she was merely an accomplice to the real mastermind, Michael Brenner of West Chicago. Brenner, a former sports editor and editor in chief, said he was duped by Reynold’s charade just like everyone else, according to published reports.

The Daily Egyptian’s faculty advisor Eric Fidler said the student news staff continues to probe the matter and to publish its findings.

“This is a grim lesson on why stories need to be checked,” Fidler said, referring to the many hours his staff recently spent giving interviews to outside media and scrutinizing Brenner’s body of work at the paper.

Rebuilding credibility with the paper’s readers may also prove to be a difficult task. Just last year, the paper apologized for two plagiarism episodes. Both offending writers were immediately fired, Fidler said.

Former Daily Egyptian editor Andy Horonzy said neither of the plagiarists was a trained journalist, and one was not even employed at the newsroom full-time. The first plagiarist was a columnist for the paper’s entertainment magazine who copied a few paragraphs from a Roger Ebert movie review in spring 2004. The second writer also contributed a partially spliced movie review in fall of the same year.

“Both knew it was wrong, but thought they could get away with it,” Horonzy said.

Horonzy added that the paper made an example out of the disgraced writers, just falling short of “branding them with a journalistic Scarlet Letter.” Inexperience, coupled with the increasing pressures to write a great story, made them more vulnerable to temptation, he said.

Horonzy characterized the problem as widespread and found in most major newsrooms.

“(Plagiarism) happens at all levels, from high school journalism to journalism’s venerable Old Gray Lady, the New York Times,” Horonzy wrote in a Daily Egyptian editorial that appeared after the second plagiarism case.

University Professor Walt Harrington, the head of the University department of journalism, was at the Washington Post in 1981 when fellow reporter Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer Prize for a fabricated story.

Harrington agreed that plagiarism and fabrication can happen at even the best news institutions, but said he rarely encountered it in his long career as a reporter.

“Most people are more thoughtful than that,” Harrington said.

Harrington recalled that editorial review tightened after the Janet Cooke scandal. Editors gave less leeway for anonymous sources, and questioned reporters’ facts more frequently.

“Asking a question was no longer seen as an accusation, but as a necessary procedure to ensure the story’s accuracy,” Harrington said.

Horozny said that because the incidents of plagiarism occurred less than six months apart, it made the newsroom more rigorous in its defense against ethical transgressions. The themes of integrity and credibility were emphasized strongly in trainings and workshops required of first-year reporters, he said.

The Daily Egyptian’s countermeasures may have come too late to stop the recently exposed fabrication of Sgt. Dan Kennings and daughter, Kodee. The paper discontinued its coverage of the emotional drama before the second plagiarism episode.

Horonzy said his one regret was not voicing his suspicions of the Kennings stories. He recalled having misgivings when the little girl posing as Kodee visited the newsroom and was doted on by Daily Egyptian staff.

“It was creepy,” he said. “It didn’t seem professional for us to get so personally wrapped up in the subject of our story.”

Hoonzy’s advice to current Daily Egyptian news staff and student news reporters everywhere: “Keep interaction to a minimum. You can’t be writing stories on people who are your friends.”