The Baltimore Sun first reported questions about Kevin Deutsch's book Pill City and interviewed him in person. (Screenshot/The Baltimore Sun)
Exclusive: When iMediaEthics last reported on Kevin Deutsch, eight sources had gone missing from the veteran crime reporter’s stories.
Since then, iMediaEthics has found six more sources that cannot be verified as real, bringing the total of his unverifiable sources to 14 in Newsday, New York Times, New York Daily News and Newsweek news stories, in 10 out of 40 articles examined. So far.
There are no results yet from Newsday and New York Daily News, which are still reviewing what amounts to well over one thousand articles by Deutsch, their former staffer. Newsday’s Communications Manager Kim Como told iMediaEthics by e-mail today, “Our review of Mr. Deutsch’s work is nearing completion. I will have nothing to add until it is complete.” Newsweek is still conducting its review into the three freelance stories Deutsch wrote for the magazine in 2014 and 2015, with its spokesperson Mark Lappin telling iMediaEthics this afternoon, “As I’m sure you will appreciate, the work involved in such a review is extensive. Nonetheless, we endeavor to find the facts, however long it takes. The review is ongoing and we hope that it will be entering its final stages very soon.”
KEY UPDATES:
+Now, 14 Deutsch sources in 10 stories out of 40 examined cannot be verified as real people, last count was 8 sources in 5 stories
+No news yet about reviews by the New York Daily News of the 572 articles Deutsch filed for them or by Newsweek of his 3 articles, both in the 8th week; No news from Newsday’s review of Deutsch’s approximately 600 stories, now in its 10th week.
+New York Times contradicts Deutsch’s claim that Times editors refused to examine notes that would prove his innocence, welcomes any evidence.
+iMediaEthics sent Deutsch more than 40 questions this morning asking for evidence of his sources or clarification of his previous statements. Deutsch did not respond. This weekend, Deutsch did not respond to e-mails and phone calls regarding a new article he published on addiction site The Fix, which the Fix then unpublished and Deutsch posted on Huffington Post.
The fact that so many of Deutsch’s named sources can’t be located is not unlike a crime mystery in itself. Though he steadfastly asserts that all his sources in his New York Times, Daily News, Newsday and Newsweek reports exist and that he quoted them accurately, they seem to have evaporated into the ether of fiction writing.
I’m most curious about his last book, Pill City. What’s the latest regarding the veracity of this?