A reporter in the Austin bureau shared by the San Antonio Express-News and other Hearst Corp. newspaper properties has resigned amid an investigation into whether people quoted in his stories are real.
Hearst's Houston Chronicle posted a note from Executive Editor Nancy Barnes saying she accepted reporter Mike Ward's resignation last week after another Chronicle journalist raised questions about the veracity of his reporting.
Ward defended his work, saying he'd quoted real people, Barnes wrote. However, paper's researchers couldn't run down "a number of sources cited in Ward's most recent reports."
The paper has hired an independent journalist to review the reporter's stories going back at least a year and will publish its findings, according to Barnes' note.
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