What is the name of the reporter who fabricates stories in season 5?

The reporter who fabricates stories in season 5 of *The Wire* is Scott Templeton.

Templeton works as a general-assignment reporter at the *Baltimore Sun*. Ambitious and eager for prominent bylines, he repeatedly embellishes details, invents quotes, and eventually claims information from the fake serial killer created by Jimmy McNulty. His fabrications become central to the season’s newsroom storyline.

City editor Gus Haynes grows suspicious and investigates Templeton’s reporting, but the newspaper’s senior editors value the attention and prestige the stories generate. Rather than immediately punish him, they allow the scandalous coverage to grow and even consider it for a Pulitzer Prize. Templeton’s success exposes the paper’s institutional failures as much as his personal dishonesty.

A common mix-up is confusing Templeton with Gus Haynes, who investigates the fraud, or Alma Gutierrez, a diligent reporter whose work is often undervalued. Thomas Klebanow is also a *Sun* editor, not the fabricating reporter. Actor Tom McCarthy portrays Scott Templeton.