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WWD's 'Memo Pad' column reports today that New York Post copy editor (and one-time Gawker interview subject), Dawn Eden (right), was fired from the paper because she:

[A]pparently embellished a Jan. 18 editorial about stem-cell research during the editing process. Her version of the story which slammed New York Senate Minority Leader David Paterson s plan for a state-sponsored stem-cell institute as a harebrained scheme ...


Eden responds on her blog, Dawn Patrol, stating simply:

The story about me under the headline "DAWN OF THE DESK" in the "Memo Pad" column of today's Women's Wear Daily is absolutely, completely untrue.

Eden calls this "the most outrageous thing that has ever happened to me in my life," and explains that:

As a copy editor on the NEWS copy desk and not the EDITORIAL PAGE department, I had NO computer access to the editorials. I would only see them when they were on page proofs, where I would mark grammar and spelling corrections ONLY. These page proofs were then given to the editorial-page editors, who would make the changes themselves. I never once while I was at the Post accessed an editorial in a manner that I could possibly make any change without the editors' full and complete knowledge.

The Post's computer system leaves a trail and it is clear who accessed its files at every stage in the production process. The records will show that not once in my three years at the Post did I ever access an editorial on the computer, which is the only place where anyone might possibly make a change without the editors' knowing.


Eden also says that she's "examining her options," but since she explained her born-again faith to our own Andrew Krucoff last August, she might want to ask herself what would Jesus do?

Keep it positive, Dawn! Remember what you said in the interview:

"I have to resist the temptation to focus on voids in my life and instead concentrate on being the kind of person I'd want to marry, befriend, or sit next to in a pew."


Amen to that.

DAWN OF THE DESK [WWD]
SMEARED [Dawn Patrol]
Five Questions: Dawn Eden, NY Post Copy Editor
[Dawn Eden photo via dawneden.com]