The Staunton (VA) News-Leader fired a reporter this week for fabricating stories and stealing material from other publications, press releases and web sites.

Reports the paper's executive editor, Dave Fritz:

Since Thursday, Oct. 18, research by News Leader editors has turned up significant evidence that News Leader sports reporter Blair J. Parker fabricated at least four stories and plagiarized from other stories on the Internet.

Parker, who had worked for The News Leader since September 2006, was suspended Thursday and was terminated on Tuesday, Oct. 23, for breaching journalistic ethics by violating The News Leader’s Principles of Ethical Conduct. We retracted the first suspect story in Friday’s edition (Oct. 19) and another on Saturday (Oct. 20).