Earlier today, a fish delivery on the Yale University campus went awry when a truck crashed into the modernist Loria Center for the History of Art. The Yale Daily News reports that around 10 a.m. the driver of a Connecticut Shellfish Company delivery truck carrying shrimp, lobster meat and haddock fillets lost control of his vehicle. The truck subsequently crashed into the front entrance of the Loria Center and shattered a glass door, according to the YDN.

No one was injured in the accident, except for the driver’s pride. As he told the YDN, “I’m embarrassed, that’s all.”

As Deadspin points out, there is a certain poetry to this particular delivery truck crashing into this particular building, which is named after Yale alum Jeffrey Loria, owner of the Miami Marlins. Besides the amusing coincidence of a fish truck denting a fish team owner’s building, there may also be a deeper meaning about the state of the baseball team (the Marlins are currently 67-91).

On Sunday morning, the Yale Daily News published an involved fact-check of former reporter (and fired WSJ intern) Liane Membis ’12, raising many new questions about the veracity of Membis’s reporting, the paper’s ethical standards, and the leadership of embattled editor-in-chief Max de la Bruyère.

Focusing on Membis’s “reported pieces,” de la Bruyère mostly describes errors like quote-changing and creative paraphrasing. In the last two paragraphs, however, he discusses a 2009 article in which Membis brags about the “expensive meals,” “liquor,” and “hotel accommodations” she accepted from her “sugar daddy”: an older, married manager at an unpaid summer internship.

He reports that Membis “offered the News different stories about the story’s authenticity”:

In an Aug. 31, 2009 email, she said, “My story is not exaggerated, so no correction is needed.” But in a March 2, 2011 email, she wrote, “The piece … was originally written under the pretense of it being a fictional piece by the Scene staff; it was edited without my presence and published in the fall of 2009, with exaggerations which were not true.”

de la Bruyère leaves a laundry list of questions unanswered. Among them: why are her statements in 2009 and 2011 so contradictory, and what occasioned them in the first place? Which “exaggerations” is she referring to? If the article is exaggerated, why was it corrected only a few days ago? Under which context did Membis actually write this article? And most importantly: is what she wrote true?

Membis asserts that, in a bid to shock readers with suggestions of a married man’s infidelity, News staffers rewrote her article without her knowledge. So, is that true? May News staffers alter a writer’s work in that way? de la Bruyère simply doesn’t answer any of these obvious questions.

This is irresponsible: these questions are checkable, and—given Membis’s lack of cooperation—checkable only by the Yale Daily News, and perhaps only by de la Bruyère himself. And yet, apparently, they have not been checked. In an article otherwise characterized by tedious detail, de la Bruyère obscures crucial information about Membis’s most controversial work.

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Significant reporting errors at the Yale Daily News foreshadowed the fate of Liane Membis, the Wall Street Journal intern who was dismissed in late June for fabricating quotes. Those same errors cast doubt on the News’s investigation of Membis’s work at the paper, and contradict its claim that there is “no evidence” suggesting Membis invented or misreported information at the News.

In 2009, Membis—then a freshman—wrote an involved piece about Yale’s Marsh Botanic Garden, which later required an unusually lengthy correction that, until today, has gone unnoticed. (Due to several broken links—explained below—the note had languished in the paper’s content management system for “a couple years,” an editor told us.)

The note is brutal. Membis “inaccurately quoted” a Yale professor (attributing to him statements that do not resemble anything he said, the note makes clear), misdescribed several “well-maintained” greenhouses as “rickety,” and included numerous factual errors in the article.

At 187 words, the article’s correction is the longest the News has published in at least a decade, according to a review of News articles that were found to have contained “several” or “numerous” errors.

Timothy Nelson, the professor quoted by Membis, told IvyGate that “it seemed [Membis] was describing another place altogether.” Read the rest of this entry »

Liane Membis, the former Wall Street Journal intern who seems to be our new best friend around these parts, is at it again! To recap her story thus far, Membis, who graduated Yale in May, was fired from her WSJ internship for fabricating sources in several articles, and it has been downhill from there. On a lone bright note for Membis, according to the New York Amsterdam News, she will still be representing Connecticut in the Miss Black America pageant. Additionally, the pageant’s executive producer tells the News that Membis now claims she is innocent. Oh.

Membis’ most glaring fabrication came in a WSJ article on the reopening of a pedestrian bridge in Manhattan. However, Aleta Anderson, the pageant’s EP, says, “In my conversation with her she denies the allegations … Her claim is that that’s her actual source on the bridge when she was writing the story.” Ok, that’s perfectly understandable for Membis to try and establish her innocence, although it does seem pretty farfetched that the WSJ would have messed up on such a grand scale. But, then this starts to get tricky, as Anderson goes on to say, “I don’t have any verification that her story is incorrect.”

Really?

We’ll walk you through the piles of evidence to the contrary that seem to keep piling up, but first, we’d like to highlight a quote from the Wall Street Journal, generally considered a trustworthy organization:

“Many of the names contained in the article about the re-opening of the 103rd Street Pedestrian Bridge in Manhattan were fabricated by reporting intern Liane Membis, and the quotes couldn’t be independently verified.”

That seems pretty definitive to us, but let’s continue. Read the rest of this entry »

A recent Yale grad is at the center of a news story today. Unfortunately for her, all the characters in this one are real life actual human beings, rather than in her head.

Tuesday morning, the Wall Street Journal posted this on their website:

“Many of the names contained in the article about the re-opening of the 103rd Street Pedestrian Bridge in Manhattan were fabricated by reporting intern Liane Membis, and the quotes couldn’t be independently verified. Ms. Membis is no longer working at The Wall Street Journal.”

This can be trusted, and if need be verified, because the people at the Wall Street Journal are all real, and not in our collective imaginations. It seems like Membis has a pretty active imagination, as two other pieces she contributed during her less than three week internship have been edited on the Journal’s website to remove quotes that couldn’t be verified. Read the rest of this entry »

Last fall the national press fell in love with Patrick Witt, a Yale quarterback, and NFL hopeful, who gave up his finalist interview for a Rhodes scholarship so he could play in the Harvard-Yale game.

Now the New York Times reports that, in fact, Witt didn’t turn down the interview of his own accord: the Rhodes committee suspended his candidacy and cancelled his interview after someone (who was not a Yale official) informed it that Witt had been accused of sexual assault in September.

It’s not clear whether the Yale official who initially approved Witt to apply for the Rhodes knew about the sexual assault incident, for which Witt went through an informal disciplinary process (and seemingly faced no consequences?) — but it’s likely he did. Interesting factoid: Witt was a member of DKE, the Yale frat that made really horrible headlines for sexual harrassment a few years ago. So this is very ugly for Yale.

Witt is reportedly no longer enrolled at Yale (?) but is still finishing his thesis? Unclear.

But, wait. That the story was broken by the Times probably strikes you as odd; the Yale Daily News — second best collegiate paper in the land – is normally all over these types of scandals like white on rice. In fact, that might be the most amazing angle of this sorry story: Former YDN opinion editor (and IG editor emeritus) Alex Klein reports that the News had known about Witt’s Rhodes woes since as early as November, but the paper’s editor in chief, Max de La Bruyere, elected to sit on the story. We reached out to the News — asking “WTF???” — but haven’t yet heard back.

And, one last quick and relevant reminder: Witt’s football coach resigned in December after it was exposed that he lied about having been a Rhodes scholar finalist.

In a column this past February, YDN writer Cokey Cohen griped that her classmate — MacArthur Genius and Yale Ph.D candidate James Franco — was bad at Twitter. Little did Cohen know at the time the firestorm she’d set off, nor could she have understood its (apparently) enduring impact.

As we all now remember, Franco — upon reading Cokey’s pointed critique — proceeded to MSPaint the angriest self-portrait to ever take a shot at the News. (We’re guessing.) And, while we made light of it at the time, the episode has apparently done more than just fuel the actor’s weird, long-standing, and often uncomfortable performance-art experiment — because Mother Jones magazine just recognized it as one of the “gutsiest” acts of college journalism in 2011.

We reached out to Cokey yesterday, wondering how she felt about the accolade. Theretofore unawares, she sent us the following reply: “Wow, that’s unexpected. I don’t really think that whole incident lives up to the standard of gutsiness Mother Jones set with their other examples.*” Which, you know, is a pretty good point. Strange choice, MoJo.

*Among the other examples to which Cokey referred: Columbia’s Bwog — not actually a newspaper –  was singled out for its amazing reportage of the Columbia Five drug bust last fall. There was an honor well earned.

Yale Daily News can’t catch a break. Since James Franco’s photo attack, a new tumblr has emerged featuring snark-laden photo memes of the YDN staff. Ladies and gentlemen: WhyDN.

Thing is, we can’t tell whether it’s mocking or celebrating them. Nor do we know if YDN actually has a hand in the site. However, we can confirm that the site features the likes of EIC Vivian Yee, columnist  online editor Esther Zuckerman, and News Editor Lauren Rosenthal. We’re also not sure how they got the pictures. (Some of the photos are on Facebok which suggests it might be really creepy Facebook stalking??)

The first post was March 14th, and, since then, the site has proven an interesting venture into the wilderness that is the campus newspaper. I mean what actually happens during those production nights when they’re all locked in there? What the hell is a Turkey Shoot?  And please explain what “cq” means.

What you get from the site is what you’d expect based on stories you’ve heard from friends at Ivy dailies. And, if it turns out that you don’t have any such friends (likely, given their cultish, insular tendencies) surely you can glean something from that person who constantly nags you for quotes. (Seriously, just let me go on pretending to ignore you.) Anyway, the point is that student journalists are one big collection of stereotypes — all of which are present on this tumblr.

Observe: the obsession with cats, the total disregard for classwork, complete overuse of journalism jargon, cult-like club incest (specially coined as Spec-cest at Columbia), and caffeine-fueled veins. (Not to mention the latent alcoholism that is the birth right of all journalists.)

Message to the creators of the site: As a daily nerd myself, pretty please expand this to other Ivy papers. We offer our RagTime for inspiration! YDN can’t be the only ones that cool — no matter what James Franco thinks.

UPDATE: First off, the tumblr now lamely requires a password.  In addition, we have received confirmation from EIC Vivian Yee of the YDN that the author is a member of the YDN staff. She also said, “As for whether it’s mocking or celebrating us — can’t it do both? Personally, I think it’s brilliant.” IG whole-heartedly agrees.

Don’t completely despair… some of the links still work, and we have all the memes we had saved from the site available after the jump.

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If you haven’t heard about the wonderful Internet meme “fuckyeahnouns,” you probably successfully barred yourself from Facebook during midterms. Don’t despair, though. This addictive procrastination epidemic — in which you simply type in a noun, and a fitting, meme-ified picture pops up — is about to bite you, too!

Here is its representation of IvyGate and the Ivy League:

(Note: We’re not sure who this guy is, but he seems super enthusiastic about our blog. We approve.)

It’s good to know that the visual representation of hating the Ivies is Justice (and Cornell alum) Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

For some of our Ivy  favorites, follow the jump.

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Feminists have not been big fans of The Yale Daily News lately, most likely because of that unfortunate News’ View they wrote about a bunch of lewd frat bros. (Lesson learned: if you want to avoid being mauled by hordes of livid progressives, don’t publicly support anyone who chants “No means yes, yes means anal.“)

But things might be looking up for the YDN, thanks to a recent survey conducted by the lady-friendly OpEd Project. The survey examined three months’ worth of op-ed pieces in nine different publications–The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Salon, The Huffington Post, The Columbia Daily Spectator, The Daily Princetonian and The Yale Daily News–and found that overall, the YDN had the second-highest rate of female contributors (33 percent).

No doubt everyone’s still going to be pissed about that number, either because it’s too high, or too low, or too indivisible by four, or too much like two pairs of boobies turned to the side. But considering that in the final week of the survey, the NYT’s op-ed lineup was only 18 percent female, it looks like Yale is doing pretty well.

In fact, the only rag that consistently tops that number is the Columbia Spec. The full results of the survey won’t be released until February–and its coordinator, Augusta Hagen-Dillon, isn’t talking until then–but according to weekly reports, the Spec’s op-ed roster is typically more than 50 percent female. Check out a chart tallying the first two months of results, after the jump:

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