Liane Membis was fired from her summer internship at the Wall Street Journal for fabricating sources in a story she wrote earlier this month, TalkingBizNews reports.
Here's the statement posted on the WSJ's site:
Note to Readers: "Bridging a Local Divide," published online on June 17, has been removed from the Journal's web sites. Many of the names contained in the article about the re-opening of the 103rd Street Pedestrian Bridge in Manhattan were fabricated by reporting intern Liane Membis, and the quotes couldn't be independently verified. Ms. Membis is no longer working at The Wall Street Journal.
We did a little digging and here's everything we know about Membis:
- She's a self-described Scrabble enthusiast who loves Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
- She calls herself an "accidental" beauty queen and currently reigns as Miss Black America Connecticut. She will compete in the Miss Black America pageant in 2012.
- She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in English and Ethnicity, Race & Migration.
- She wrote for the Yale Daily News.
- While at school in New Haven, she worked as a tutor at a public school for three years.
- She's a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority
- She's had bylines for CNN.com, the Huffington Post and Ebony Magazine.
- In the future, she would like to become "a journalist, professor, and non-profit program director."
Lesson learned: Interns, be honest about your work.
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