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Kevin Cullen (born May 1, 1959) is an American journalist and author. He was a member of ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'''s 2003 investigative team. ''The Boston Globe'' as an institution won a Pulitzer Prize for ''Public Service'' for coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston. Cullen is co-author of ''The New York Times'' bestseller ''Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice''. On April 20, 2018, Cullen was suspended by ''The Boston Globe'' due to his fabrication of stories related to the
Boston Marathon bombing The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...
, including his location during the bombing, as well as several other stories later found to be false. Cullen was suspended without pay for three months on June 15, 2018. He was also barred from making media appearances for six months and was placed under “heightened editorial scrutiny" by the ''Globe'' during any media appearances thereafter.


Early life and education

Cullen was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in Malden, Massachusetts, where he attended
Malden High School Malden High School is a public high school in Malden, Massachusetts. Established in 1857, the school is part of the Malden Public Schools and is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). A 2013 study conduc ...
. In 1981, Cullen graduated '' summa cum laude'' from the
University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...
with a dual degree in Journalism and Political Science and attended
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
in Ireland during his junior year. During his senior year, Cullen worked as a stringer for wire services such as the
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
.


Journalism career

After graduating college, Cullen got a job at the ''
Holyoke Transcript-Telegram The ''Holyoke Transcript-Telegram'', or ''T‑T'', was an afternoon daily newspaper covering the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts, United States, and adjacent portions of Hampden County and Hampshire County. Published as a daily since 1882, afte ...
''. From there, he took a job at the '' Boston Herald'', and then moved from there to ''The Boston Globe'' where he has remained.


Whitey Bulger

Cullen began reporting on
Whitey Bulger James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. (; September 3, 1929 – October 30, 2018) was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Bos ...
soon after joining ''The Boston Globe'' in 1985. In 1988, he was part of the ''Globe''s investigative "Spotlight" team that exposed Bulger as an FBI informant. Recently, he co-authored a book along with fellow journalist Shelley Murphy titled ''Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice''.


Northern Ireland Troubles

In 1997, he was appointed as the ''Globe'''s Dublin bureau chief, covering the
Northern Ireland peace process The Northern Ireland peace process includes the events leading up to the 1994 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire, the end of most of the violence of the Troubles, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and subsequent political developm ...
, the only American journalist who did so. After a year in Dublin, Ireland, he moved to London to serve as the paper's chief European correspondent, covering the
Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...
. He reported from more than 20 countries across Europe.


Catholic sex abuse scandal

In 2001, he returned to Boston and reported news as a member of ''
The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'''s 2003 investigative team. ''The Boston Globe'' as an institution won a Pulitzer Prize for ''Public Service'' for coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston. The team itself won many other awards for those exposes on the Catholic sex abuse scandal, including the
Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting The Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting is an award for journalists administered by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The program was launched in 1991, with the goal of exposing examples of ...
, the
George Polk Award The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awar ...
for National Reporting, and the
Selden Ring Award The Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting, given by the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectar ...
for Investigative Reporting.


Boston Marathon bombing fabrications

On April 19, 2018, it was revealed by Boston radio host Kirk Minihane that Cullen fabricated details in his accounting of what he saw at the Boston Marathon bombing in columns he wrote for ''The Boston Globe'', ''
The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...
'', and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. Despite not being at the scene when the bombs went off, Cullen's portrayal of the Richard family during the marathon included several inconsistencies across his writings. The ''Globe'' placed Cullen on administrative leave a day later to determine the extent of his dishonesty. On June 15, 2018, the ''Globe'' announced that Cullen would be suspended without pay for three months, with the newspaper's editor and publisher claiming that “our review leads us to a conclusion that Mr. Cullen damaged his credibility.” Among the reported instances of wrongdoing, in a radio interview with the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
after the bombing, Mr. Cullen fabricated a story in which he claimed that he had spoken to a firefighter who had rescued a 7-year-old girl hurt in the bombing and carried her to an ambulance before noticing that the girl's lower leg had been severed by the bomb, at which point, according to Cullen, the firefighter "went back to the scene and he told me he crawled on his legs and his hand and his knees trying to find her leg and he couldn’t find it." The firefighter, a lieutenant with the Boston Fire Department, said that he hadn't spoken with Cullen on the day of the bombings and that the story of him searching for the child's leg was "crazy." ''The Globe''s review criticized Cullen for failing to take the investigation of his fabrications seriously:
And now we come to what is the most troubling episode - what to make of Mr. Cullen’s long and dramatic tale, told four months after the intensity of the bombing week to an audience of journalism educators. This is the narrative of the deputy fire chief handing Mr. Cullen his cell phone on the night of the bombing and urging him to help persuade a troubled firefighter on the other end of the phone to leave his home and come join them for a drink. It is clear from interviews with the firefighters Mr. Cullen has cited that the episode simply did not happen. Mr. Cullen’s answer to our questions about it - that he does not remember telling that story - doesn’t change the fact that he did, as the C-SPAN video attests. The fact that Mr. Cullen did not himself seek and review that video, easily found, raised questions for us about how seriously he takes the inevitable conclusion that the story he told is a complete fabrication.
Cullen also fabricated claims as to his location at the time of the attacks, claiming that he could "hear," "smell," and "taste" the bombings. "I own what I did and I accept responsibility for these shortcomings and I'm sorry that it has allowed some to attack the ''Globe'' itself," said Cullen.


Books

Cullen is co-author of ''Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church'', and was a contributor to the books, ''Britain and Ireland: Lives Entwined II'', and ''Our Boston'', an anthology by Boston writers published in support of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. He and Shelley Murphy are the authors of ''The New York Times'' bestseller, ''Whitey Bulger: America’s Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice'', published in 2013.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cullen, Kevin Living people The Boston Globe people American male journalists University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni People from Malden, Massachusetts Journalists from Massachusetts Writers from Boston Nieman Fellows 1959 births