Truth or Consequences?

The journalist as pathological liar: Reading about the reporter at The New York Times who made up sources, quotes and entire stories, over a period of years, inspires nausea.

I labored at bottom-of-the-barrel journalistic jobs for several years--at trade publications and an alumni magazine--and never once made up a quote or intentionally misstated a fact. Being a reporter for a less-than-glamorous publication is pretty much thankless work (it pays less than teaching, for cripes sake), but I still felt an almost sacred responsibility to “get the fact straight.” I can’t imagine working for a prestige outfit like the Times--or the New Republic, which suffered a similar scandal--and making it up as I went along.

The fellow who did so at the New Republic was interviewed on 60 Minutes last Sunday. He got a big advance from a publisher to write a book about his adventures. Appropriately, it’s a novel. He specializes in fiction after all. Of course, on the program, he was contrite about his deceptions.

One of his former editors described him as engaging in “contrition as a career move.” That seems spot on. It used to be that fame was rewarded; now it seems that infamy is equally lucrative. The distinction between the famous and the notorious seems to be eroding. What does that say about us?

Here's an interesting take on this whole mess: A sorry twist to liar's quest for adulation