Mediaite Suspends Founding Editor Over Multiple Reporting Errors

Mediaite has suspended its founding editor Colby Hall after an investigation revealed more than a half-dozen serious errors in his One Sheet newsletter, including fabricated stories, invented quotes, misattributions, and apparent plagiarism.

The latest incident involved Hall awarding independent journalist Lachlan Cartwright “Newsletter of the Day” earlier this month for a supposed exclusive on Jeff Shell negotiating his exit from Paramount Global. Cartwright’s outlet, Breaker, never reported the story.

“We’ve barely won a chook raffle here at Breaker so it was a surprise to us that we won newsletter of the week for something we did not write,” Cartwright told Status on Tuesday.

Colby Hall

Status identified additional problems in Hall’s work, including one instance where he appeared to copy a passage from Status itself, making only minor changes before publishing it as his own.

Joe DePaolo, Mediaite’s top editor, confirmed Hall’s suspension pending further review.

“Thank you for bringing these errors to our attention,” DePaolo told Status. “We presented your findings to Colby Hall who insists the errors were purely a result of sloppiness in how he aggregated and categorized information, not from the use of A.I. Regardless, it is completely unacceptable and Colby has been suspended from Mediaite pending further investigation.”

One Sheet is a subscription newsletter that summarizes reporting from other outlets.