Comment by qarl2

> The retraction post from Gruber details ways in which he tried to fact-check this

Yes it does. To fact check this story - he asked the source (twice) if he was lying.

> I'm not really sure what you're implicitly expecting him to have done "better" here.

He could have asked for the full text of the rejection letter, which would have revealed the name switch. For starters.

Other journalists make a much stronger effort to avoid these kinds of errors.