In September, I informed our readers of the troubling allegation that a veteran political reporter, Mike Ward, had fabricated individuals for a story published earlier this summer. I promised a thorough investigation of Ward's work and that I would share the results with our readers. Today's story by David Wood, whom we hired as a freelance investigative reporter, details our findings.

As a result of this investigation, the Houston Chronicle is retracting eight stories written by Ward. In each case, the story's premise was based on sourcing we cannot confirm. We are correcting an additional 64 stories, each of which had at least one unconfirmed source but whose premise did not rest on an unconfirmed source.

These are challenging times for our country, and for journalism. That makes it all the more important that readers trust that we will ferret out the truth, even if it concerns ourselves.

These are the stories that we'll retract in print and online:

July 31, 2018: 'We've moved on': Political anger after Harvey has eased; Experts believe disaster response is unlikely to be a factor in November

June 15, 2018: Texas Republicans ride Trump train; At state convention, even those initially skeptical praise president for keeping conservative pledges

June 15, 2018: Outside Texas GOP convention, political parties are becoming less important

June 14, 2018: Houston Republicans disagree, mirror state of GOP politics

June 13, 2018: Cash-poor Dems reach out to voters; Money not issue for Republicans in state races

May 4, 2018: NRA sets stage for fiery debate; Backers of constitutional carry uplifted, but critics not swayed

March 11, 2018: 7th District reflects Texas' transformation; Long a political bellwether, the GOP haven is now up for grabs as diversity powers change

November 29, 2017: 3rd Democratic win raises eyebrows in Oklahoma; Successes in special elections could signal future wave of blue in Texas

Nancy Barnes

Executive Editor