Identity Crisis   

San Jose Mercury News projects reporter Jim Dyer resigns after the paper publishes a statement from Executive Editor David Yarnold explaining that Dyer violated the paper’s ethics policy while researching a story.

San Jose Mercury News projects reporter Jim Dyer resigns after the paper publishes a statement from Executive Editor David Yarnold explaining that Dyer violated the paper's ethics policy while researching a story. "While the story was accurate, we learned recently that Dyer gained access to an Iowa state archive by presenting himself as a graduate student, rather than as a journalist," Yarnold wrote. "And he did not fully disclose the purpose of his research." Dyer, a master's degree candidate in journalism at the University of Iowa, was investigating university experiments conducted in 1939 that conditioned orphans to stutter. Dyer's research agreement allowed him to review the orphanage records, which are confidential under state law, State Archivist Gordon Hendrickson says, but with the understanding that he was a student doing scholarly research. Hendrickson says Dyer "did not at any time tell me that he was a journalist working on a story." Yarnold declined to comment; Dyer did not return phone calls.