Mary, Mary

Al Kamen weighs in on journalistic integrity:

Making up events and facts is clearly a no-no for a reporter. [John R.] Lott's greatest fan and defender online, Mary Rosh, would certainly agree. Rosh, a former student of Lott's, has jousted online for three years against Lott's harshest critics, who have bitterly attacked his research and data, which he says show gun ownership deters crime.

Rosh said Lott taught her at the University of Pennsylvania in the early 1990s and was "the best professor that I ever had." She said she and other students "would try to take any class he taught," but "Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors" to get a broader education. She posted an effusive review of his book on the Amazon.com Web site, giving it the highest five-star rating. It was signed "Maryrosh."

Imagine our amazement to find that Mary Rosh wasn't real. She's actually John R. Lott Jr. Lott told our colleague Richard Morin, who broke the story in the print press Feb. 1, that he wrote the e-mails under that name, though his wife helped their 13-year-old son write the Amazon review.

Of his inventing a fan, Lott told Morin he "shouldn't have done it."