I'm sorry, but the marketplace slip up seems pretty inexcusable.

I could see if the guy had maybe not earned some medals he claimed he had, or if he was lower rank than he claimed, but he claimed to be a returning veteran and was never even in the army.

Maybe it's just me, but verifying his army background and veteran status would be the first thing I would check going with a story titled, "Returning veteran has few marketable skills"

Admitting they were wrong is nice, but that's a pretty big wrong that was easily avoidable by doing even a little checking.

Marketplace purchased the story from another non-profit producer (http://www.mylifeistrue.org/). They assumed the original journalists had done the basic due diligence, so blaming marketplace for failing the obvious background checks is a bit unfair. They took accountability for someone else's mistake.

That doesn't cut it for me. Media organizations ought to be doing their own reporting, and where they don't they need to be going with reputable organizations with standards and procedures in place to keep this kind of thing from happening.

Accountability for other people's mistakes is law in commerce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson

NPR has had a bit of bad run in general lately, the Native American adoption story from South Dakota was pretty much wrong (proof was in the budgets).

This American Life is not an NPR program.

Sorry, it only airs on NPR around here and their site says "This American Life is produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International."

NPR and your local public radio station are two different things. Everyone acts like they aren't (I never say "I'm putting on WBEZ"; I say "I'm putting on NPR"), but in reality, your local public radio station is a separate entity that buys content from NPR and PRI.

This is usually a distinction without a difference, but when it comes to evaluating the standards and practices of a particular show, it helps to know who actually has oversight.

Its much akin to Syndication on TV but when you see a large Warner Brother's logo in front of a show on the CW, it's easier to distinguish.

Chicago Public Radio and Public Radio International aren't affiliated with NPR. PRI is a competitor.

Marketplace is.

Marketplace is produced by American Public Media.

http://www.marketplace.org/

Look, they're all part of the same Kenyan muslim communist atheist climate-change-imagining prius-driving organic-food-eating "fact and reality" based conspiracy.

A real news outlet determines the truth before, optionally, looking for or fabricating facts to support it.

Now, what's a good synonym for "slut"?