The column that forced Sacramento Bee columnist Diana Griego Erwin to resign looks like the tip of the iceberg, according to a report published Sunday by the newspaper.

Erwin resigned May 11 after her supervisors couldn’t verify the existence of several people in her recent columns. The investigation by the Bee turned up 43 people whose existence could not be confirmed. Click here and here for more Rathergate coverage of Erwin.

The two-tiered investigative team scoured Erwin’s 171 columns since January 2004 and could not verify the existence of 30 people in 27 columns. Investigators then sampled random columns throughout the rest of her 10-year career and found 13 additional people in 10 columns whose existence could not be proven.

The Bee really went all-out to prove that Erwin was making it up. Read more:

Yes, people come and go. However, Erwin apparently made the mistake that fired Boston Globe columnist Patricia Smith made — she fabricated people whose vocations should have made them easy to track down, such as the fictional barber “Donald Burton” (barbers and hairdressers are state licensed), and retired teacher “Margaret Brown” (who did not show up in the Teacher Retirement System database).

In another interesting parallel between Smith and Erwin, they both shared a love of the same subject matter:

Many of the columns in question fit a template: essays, often with a surprising O. Henry twist, about a singular person who faces a challenge and surmounts it. Their stories frequently reflect a theme taken from current headlines - wildfires, for example, or prison brutality, school shootings, murderous road rage or a high-profile trial.

Bee investigators scoured voter registration, property records, telephone books, Google and other databases, and also resorted to old-school GOYASKOD: Get Off Your Ass and Start Knocking on Doors. The Bee even tested its search methodology to assure Erwin was being given a fair shake by testing it on characters in 36 columns by three other Bee columnists. Every single name was verified with no hassle.

(Speaking of corrections and accuracy, I noticed that I began calling Ms. Erwin “Donna” rather than “Diana” after the first post. I have gone through Rathergate and corrected every instance.)

Erwin is staying silent on the issue, except for an e-mail asking the Bee why it is dwelling on this. Ms. Erwin, I can’t speak for the Bee, but I think the answer is something along the lines of, you have been caught making things up, otherwise known as Journalism’s Deadliest Sin.

Take the time to read how the Bee went about investigating Erwin’s work history — it’s methodical and well-executed and obviously took a lot of work. However, the article dishearteningly lacks a course of action, i.e. preventing the next Erwin, aside from the possibility that subjects of columns will be photographed.

With all due respect to Executive Editor Rick Rodriguez, the paper has to be more proactive. Obviously, very few news organizations have the time or the staff to fact-check every single item in every single article by almost 300 contributors. And if you have to verify everything that a reporter or columnist writes,that’s an untrustable person you don’t want on your payroll. But maybe the next Erwin won’t end up on your shores if they know that the Bee’s editors are going to be randomly checking work, or requesting a phone number or address of a source.

Read the Bee’s damning indictment of Erwin, and then read the first part of the Sacramento, Chico and Reno News & Review’s interview of Erwin after the resignation:

Diana Griego Erwin says she didn’t put this T-shirt on specifically because a reporter would be coming over to interview her. But as I am invited into her McKinley Park-area home, her white top is the first thing I notice. Its pink lettering reads: “Speak freely, while you still can.�

As I just wrote in a letter to the News&Review’s editor, Erwin needs to change her wardrobe with the Bee’s revelation. My suggestion? Do they sell t-shirts that say, “I got caught making up sources and all I got for a severance package was this lousy t-shirt”?

UPDATE: Coincidentally, Erwin and Freep columnist Mitch Albom won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ annual “Sitting Duck Award,” reports Editor & Publisher. The humorous award is given annually to a celebrity who makes obvious fodder for columnists with writer’s block — Michael Jackson and Saddam Hussein were among the nominees — but the society found that the best column fodder came from its own ranks.

These columnists made it easier for other columnists to write something on a slow news day, noted Mike Argento. “We didn’t have to make something up, because they already did it for us,” quipped the NSNC vice president and York (Pa.) Daily Record columnist.

Priceless.