2005-10-06 :: 9:27 p.m.
Media Whore

Hoax Leaves Ill. Student Paper Embarrassed
By JIM SUHR, Associated Press WriterFri Aug 26, 6:05 PM ET
Kodee Kennings' story was pure gold. For nearly two years, the motherless 8-year-old spoke and wrote movingly of her struggle to deal with her soldier father being shipped off to fight in Iraq, and Southern Illinois University's student newspaper chronicled her thoughts in its pages.

But there was no Kodee Kennings, and the elaborate hoax exposed Friday left The Daily Egyptian embarrassed.

"Certainly for us it's a sad day," said Eric Fidler, Daily Egyptian faculty adviser for the past year. "Some good can come from this, but it doesn't help our reputation. All we can do is be upfront with what happened and what we know."

A 2004 SIU graduate who posed as Kodee's guardian says she and a former Daily Egyptian editor concocted the story to help his career. He denies that and says he was duped, too.

A 10-year-old girl who posed as Kodee in public appearances and a man who pretended to be her father say they were unwitting participants in the scam and believed they were acting in a film.

The tale began to unravel last week when the Daily Egyptian heard that the solider had been killed in Iraq and subsequent investigations by the student newspaper and the Chicago Tribune exposed that he did not exist.

The Egyptian issued a complete retraction, apology and a news article Friday explaining what happened.

"There is no pleasant way to put it," the newspaper said. "We didn't check the facts carefully. We believed what we were told without verifying."

Kim Treger, owner of a women's shoe and accessories store, said she followed the story from the start but was not surprised to learn it was fake.

"As long as people dig those sentimental stories and have that yellow-ribbon mentality, there are going to be these hoaxes," she said.

The tale began with a news story written by journalism student Michael Brenner. The article, which appeared on May 6, 2003, described the emotional parting of Kodee and her father, Sgt. Dan Kennings, as he left Fort Campbell, Ky., for Iraq.

"Please don't leave," Kodee begged in the story. "I'll be good if you stay. I won't get in trouble."

The newspaper later published letters and columns from Kodee about the difficulty of being apart from her father.

"Daddy I love you," Kodee wrote in a letter to her father. "Can you kill all the bad guys now so Air Force One can bring you home?"

The last of the girl's columns appeared in the newspaper in July of last year.

Jaimie Reynolds, a former SIU radio and television student, acknowledged pretending to be Kodee's guardian when confronted by Chicago Tribune reporters Wednesday.

Reynolds said she and Brenner invented the story.

"Mike is my best friend," Reynolds told the Tribune. "In the last couple of years he's had a hard time with his career. He asked me if I would help him out. I said I would. It just got a little bigger than he told me it would."

Brenner vehemently denied concocting the story and said he was deceived by Reynolds.

"Obviously she is making that up. I swear I'm telling the truth," Brenner, who served a semester as the Daily Egyptian's editor-in-chief before graduating in December, told the Tribune. "The last two years of my life, I don't know what to believe."

Reynolds and Brenner could not immediately be reached for comment Friday. Neither has a listed telephone number.

Kodee was actually 10-year-old Caitlin Hadley, who was driven to Carbondale by Reynolds, who knew her family.

"We were always on camera, but I didn't see any cameras," Caitlin told the Tribune.

The Hadleys could not immediately be reached for comment Friday. They do not have a public telephone listing.

Sgt. Kennings was played by Patrick Trovillion, a Reynolds acquaintance who said he believed he was portraying a cocky soldier in a legitimate movie.

Brenner served sports writing internships at The (Springfield) State Journal-Register and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Post-Dispatch editor Ellen Soeteber said his articles will likely be reviewed.

State Journal-Register editor Barry Locher said the paper has no plans to fact-check Brenner's past stories because most of them were coverage of sporting events.