A Journalist’s Lesson Learned

This is by far the hardest post I have had to write.  A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Robbin Kane, who I blogged about twice before.  Her heart-wrenching story tore through me and inspired me to make everyday count.  She shared with me that she had stage four ovarian cancer and that her husband had perished in 9/11.  I couldn’t make sense out of how much misfortune and heart-ache she had endured.

Like any journalist would have, I researched her story as best I could.  She had told me that her husband’s name was Howard, but everyone called him Kevin.  I found Howard Kane on a list of deceased persons on a 9/11 tribute Web site.  I saw medical records that she had from Sloan Kettering in New York where she received chemotherapy.  I put my heart and soul into writing her story.

A little while after I blogged her story, I received an email from a man who said he knew Robbin and Kevin.  This man informed me that Kevin was very much alive and that they had gotten divorced.  Of course at first, I didn’t believe him.  How could someone fabricate a story like this?  I went back to my notes, and a professor of mine and myself researched the story again.  However, this time, while looking for holes, we found some.

Because I didn’t want to make another mistake, I researched this story with my professor as in depth as we possibly could.  In the end, to my horror, I discovered that she had lied.  The only thing she didn’t fabricate was the fact that she had cancer.  I can’t begin to understand why she did this.  I can’t imagine what happened between her and her husband that would constitute her creating this tale of awful events.

I confronted her about what I found when I furthered my research.  She stuck by her story, but could never produce any proof to back it up.  After that conversation, I never heard from her again. 

I am ashamed for having believed her and not thinking that it needed to be researched any further than I orginally had.  Aside from the shame, I am hurt.  This was disrespectful to the family of the man she said was her husband.  It was disrespectful to Kevin.  And she was disrespectful to me.

I never in my wildest thoughts would have guessed that she could be making any of it up.  I apologize to Kevin, who I am sure has gone through unbearable heart-ache himself, to the families of those who perished on 9/11 and to Robbin.  I am sorry I ever interviewed Robbin in the first place.

This has definitely been an eye-opening experience.  I have learned, grown and been humbled by this all.  I will be removing the previous posts about Robbin from this blog.

To the man who brought this to my attention-if you ever somehow read this, I am sorry and thank you.