In our recent discussion of plagiarism and fake quotes, a commenter points to two recent posts by Mark Liberman (here and here) where Liberman links to about a zillion cases of journalists publishing quotes that were never said.
He goes into some detail about two journalists from the New Yorker: Jared Diamond, who created quotes from a some dude in Papua New Guinea (ironically, one of Diamond’s accusers here is the widow of Stephen Jay Gould), and Janet Malcolm, who not only apparently falsified quotes by a subject of one of her articles, she also may have faked the notes for her interviews.
I didn’t know that particular bit about Janet Malcolm, but I’ve felt very uncomfortable about her ever since she her apparent attempt to try to force a mistrial for a convicted killer. Between that case and her earlier The Journalist and the Murderer, Malcolm really does seem to have some sort of sympathy for people who kill their family members. She’s a good writer, but I still find this a bit creepy.
Liberman writes:
I find it odd that Lehrer was forced to resign, while Malcolm is still on the New Yorker staff.
I have an answer to that! Malcolm is an excellent, thoughtful writer with a unique take on things. Sometimes too unique, in my opinion (for example, in her sympathy for murderers), but arguably a great writer. Lehrer, on the other hand, is nothing special. His gimmick was that he was a boy wonder, and once he lost that, he’s just one more hack, there’s no particular reason for a top magazine to publish him, any more than a top statistics journal would solicit a review article from Ed Wegman. Lehrer is now in the uncomfortable position of having his work judged on its own merits.
P.S. I happened to have just read The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas. (I love those old fit-in-your-pocket paperbacks.) Valachi was a killer but still, while reading the book, I found myself rooting for him. Indeed, Maas, writes that he and others found Valachi likable. Still, Maas didn’t get all indignant that Valachi was in jail. He accepted that Valachi had done his crimes. In contrast, Malcolm seemed to feel that the murderer discussed in her article deserved some sort of exceptional legal representation that would get her off the hook. (In Malcolm’s defense, her subject killed only one person whereas Valachi was responsible for dozens of deaths. But still.)
If you haven’t read it before, Honor Thy Father is a good complement to Valachi.
I’ll give it a try. I’ve always found Talese a bit mannered for my taste but maybe in that instance it would work. I read Maas’s King of the Gypsies many years ago and liked it, but I have no idea how true it all is.
The recommendation was more on subject than on style (no aspersions on Talese, it’s just been a long time and I don’t recall my reaction). What stayed with me was the complementary vantages: a general and a soldier. Talese’s take reminded me of the Godfather while Maas’s recalled Goodfellas.
Malcolm faked quotes by Jeffrey Masson, a psychiatrist involved in a controversy for exposing that Freud made up the material on which Freud based his theory that women fantasize being molested as children … Malcolm’s quotes made Masson look like a nihilist ass; her defense was that he really *was* a nihilist ass, so it didn’t matter she made up the quotes. I kid you not.
I’d like to make a couple of comments about Jared Diamond, because I am surprised and disappointed that no one else has. (No personal connection, never met him, etc.)
On a factual note, he is here cited as a journalist. That’s as bizarre as it would be to describe Paul Krugman or Steven Weinberg as a journalist because they also write for wider audiences. He is a distinguished academic, member of the National Academy of Sciences, etc.
Naturally, that would be neither here nor there if he really did make stuff up. But only a little digging brings up another interpretation of the story, in short that he was told lies and believed them. Foolish, sure, but not the story cited here. This is accessible at the Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Diamond
I’ve not found out what happened to the lawsuit against Diamond.
This is of course an old tale. Hugh Trevor-Roper, in many respects a very sharp historian, was utterly fooled by some fake Hitler diaries. It’s still a raging controversy how far, or indeed whether, Margaret Mead was taken in by lies (exaggerations, if you like) told her by some of her informants in Samoa.
This is on the whole an extremely interesting and provocative blog. One of the things that lets it down is a willingness to spread negative stories to no point. I think you’re almost entirely right to keep going on about Wegman, but Diamond isn’t indicted by one big mistake.
Nick:
You could be right on this; I was relying on Liberman’s characterization and didn’t look into the story further. You’ll be glad to hear that I have no plans to make Jared Diamond a regular character on the blog!