A staff reporter for The New York Times committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud....

He fabricated comments. He concocted scenes. He lifted material from other newspapers. He selected details from photographs to create the impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not....

Every newspaper, like every bank and every police department, trusts its employees to uphold central principles.... [The reporter] repeatedly violated the cardinal tenet of journalism, which is simply truth.

— New York Times, May 11

I have a confession to make.

I have committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud, and, less frequently, acts of journalistic chicanery. Every newspaper, like every bank or every financial institution, trusts its employees to uphold central principles, and I repeatedly violated the cardinal. I have also been guilty of deleting key words from my work, which is just terrible of me.

But there have been other, more egregious transgressions:

• In April 1999, I fabricated comments. In a story headlined EYE CARAMBA!, I claimed that George W. Bush had lunged at Richard Gephardt at a White House meet-and-greet, "drunk out of his gourd," as I reported it, and threatened to "jab" Senator Gephardt in the eye "with this fucking toothpick." Never happened. Neither did the president describe Tipper Gore as "the Pillsbury Doughboy in a wig" at the same event. There was no event. I’m sorry.

• In September 2000, I concocted a scene. I had been sent to cover a meeting of the trustees of the New York Public Library. Concocter that I am, I decided a drug-induced riot involving the New York chapter of Hell’s Angels would be more engaging, particularly if it were attended by the singer Justin Timberlake. The fact is, to my knowledge, Timberlake has never hit anybody with a motorcycle chain. I regret the concoction.

• In January 2001, I selected details from photographs to create the impression I had been somewhere or seen someone, when I had not. Yes, I know what color tie John F. Kennedy was wearing when he was assassinated, but that was not me running beside Kennedy’s car, pointing up at the window of the book depository, as I claimed in my retrospective BLOOD ON THE NOTEBOOK. I have never even been to Dallas, despite the dateline on my article LARRY HAGMAN HELD BY CHECHEN REBELS. My bad.

• In May 2003, I lifted material from another newspaper. "Let’s say, hypothetically, that Tibetan monks for some reason or other forsook their long-held pacifism and commenced crossing the border into China and eating Chinese babies. Now say the Chinese retaliated by skulking across the border into Tibet and munching some Tibetan babies." A brilliant passage, but not mine. In fact, my feature SLOW FOOD CRAZE HITS ASIA was littered with passages lifted from the most recent issue of the Weekly Dig — including the article’s final line: "This is about how it’s wrong to eat any babies."

Despite all this, let me just say, from the bottom of my heart, I am not a crook.