After being told that one of its freelancers had fabricated quotations on reports, editors at the Guardian hired a private investigator to learn more.
What they found was sobering: evidence that Joseph Mayton, a California-based freelancer, had made up quotes, misreported sources, and written about events he hadn’t attended. His rogue reporting had continued unchecked for seven years,
For the Guardian, the discovery necessitated an apology. The newspaper made an announcement, and removed or changed many of Mayton’s articles in response.
But for journalists in Egypt this fiasco is bigger than one man’s reliability.
Although he wrote mainly from the west coast of the USA, Mayton published a handful of articles for the Guardian from Cairo. This is a place where hostility towards foreign journalists is already high – and where media and politicians often vilify international reporters for “discrediting” the country.
Transgressions don’t get forgotten easily, and in Egyptian media the incident is being painted as a scandal.
In the last few days both government ministers and national journalists have said the fiasco discredits all the Guardian’s reporting from Egypt - even going as far as saying it’s evidence of a conspiracy. TV presenter and MP Mustafa Bakri used his TV show "Truths and Secrets" to claim that the Guardian works against the army and to influence the Egyptian people, while Salahadin Abdelsadaq, the head of the State Information Service, said the paper had no place in Egypt.
Ironically, many of the reports on the scandal were themselves guilty of misreporting. Mayton didn’t have strong connections with Egypt: the last article he wrote from the country was in 2010 and he was never its official correspondent – that was award-winning journalist Patrick Kingsley.
But the news comes at a bad time for press freedom in Egypt, and reporters there have good reason to be worried. French journalist Remy Piglaglio was barred from entering the country and deported only last week, while in 2014 three Al Jazeera journalists were jailed under charges of broadcasting false information.
