17 Facts About Janet Cooke

Janet Leslie Cooke was born on July 23,1954 and is an American former journalist.

Janet Cooke received a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for an article written for The Washington Post.

The story was later discovered to have been fabricated and Cooke returned the prize, the only person to date to do so, after admitting she had fabricated stories.

Janet Cooke grew up in an upper-middle-class, African-American family in Toledo, Ohio.

Janet Cooke said her upbringing was stressful and strict, with constant demands on her by both the predominantly white preparatory schools she attended and by her father, whom she described as domineering; as a result, she claimed that habitual lying became a "survival mechanism" for her as a child.

Janet Cooke enrolled at Vassar College before transferring to the University of Toledo, where she earned a bachelor's degree.

Janet Cooke was assigned to the "Weeklies" section staff of the Post managed by editor Vivian Aplin-Brownlee in January 1980.

Aplin-Brownlee later remarked that Janet Cooke was "consumed by blind and raw ambition".

Janet Cooke wrote of the "needle marks freckling the baby-smooth skin of his thin, brown arms", and claimed to have witnessed episodes of heroin injection, describing them in graphic detail.

Barry then admitted that the city still had no information on Jimmy's whereabouts, and suggested that the story was fictionalized partially, saying it was unlikely that Jimmy's mother or dealer would "allow a reporter to see them shoot up", as Janet Cooke claimed she saw.

An Associated Press article about the Pulitzer winners featured biographical profiles, including Janet Cooke's fabricated educational background.

Janet Cooke's initial resume claimed that she was fluent in French and Spanish, but she later added Portuguese and Italian; executive editor Ben Bradlee later tested her language abilities, and found that she spoke no Portuguese or Italian and only rudimentary French.

Janet Cooke said that her sources had hinted to her about the existence of a boy such as Jimmy but, unable to find him, she eventually created a story about him to satisfy her editors.

Janet Cooke later married a lawyer who subsequently became a diplomat.

However, their marriage eventually ended, and Janet Cooke said that the divorce left her impoverished.

Janet Cooke returned to the United States, supporting herself with low-wage service jobs and financial help from her mother.

In 2016, Sager wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that Janet Cooke "is living within the borders of the continental United States, within a family setting, and pursuing a career that does not primarily involve writing".