PressEthic

Boston-based radio talk show host Jay Serin has been telling some lies. The Boston Globe reports today on a statement that he made last week on his show about winning the Pulitzer Prize for excellence in online journalism. Problem is, it never happened.

Serin said on his show, “But since journalism began, and up until the time at least that I took my master's degree at Boston University -- and may I add without being obnoxious, up till and including the time that I received a Pulitzer Prize for my columns for excellence in online journalism from the Columbia School of Journalism, the highest possible award for writing on the Web -- right up to and including that in 1998, you still had to practice journalism to be a journalist." He later tried to explain that he hadn’t said he was awarded a Pulitzer, but that he was awarded the equivalency of one. Turns out that is a lie too. It’s funny that Serin made this grandiose statement as he was criticizing journalists for their lack of expertise. Apparently, in his day, you didn’t have to practice honesty and integrity to be a journalist.

Curiously, the student newspaper of B.C. College reported in 2003 that Serin was a Pulitzer Prize winner. But there isn't even a Pulitzer for online journalism (see Jeff Jarvis' blog for his opinion on that).

I wonder why he lied? It’s clear in the article that he is a vain person, so I’m sure that has a lot to do with it. But the way that he reacted to accusations almost make it seem as if he told himself a lie a long time ago, and over the years he just started to believe it. However, he didn’t believe it enough to put it in his bio for the radio station.

In The Cheating Culture by David Callahan, many people are cited as lying on their resumes in order to get a better job. Most recently, we have seen this with Michael Brown, who lied on his resume to make it seem as if he had more experience with disaster relief. But Serin seems like he’s doing fine, according to his bio, he is also a political analyst for MSNBC. Whatever the reason, it is unacceptable for a journalist to make such a false statement, even if it isn’t really hurting anyone but himself. The key here, as a journalist, is to remain trustworthy.