April 15th, 2008 issue of the The Daily Utah Chronicle)
It came to pass that the Lord Almighty, Oprah, invited the evil prophet James Frey to Her talk show in 2006. Oprah saw that the wickedness of James Frey was great upon the land, for he had led the people astray with his tales of deceit and drug addictions. Oprah, the Alpha and the Omega, smote James Frey with a mighty curse in front of Her studio audience, saying unto him, "Thou shalt not lie to thy Lord and Oprah."
The moral of the story: Those who lie to Oprah will be turned to pillars of salt.
Two years ago, author James Frey became the center of a literary controversy when it was revealed that portions of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, had been fabricated. A public castigation by talk-show host Oprah -- who had previously chosen the memoir for her book club -- led to an escalation of media criticism.
Many were surprised and dismayed that a modern author, in this era of global interconnectivity and hyper check-and-balances, would lie about his manufactured memories.
Thanks to the Internet, mistakes and inaccuracies -- whether intentional or not -- are proven almost immediately. Presidential candidates are pounced upon for untrue claims of Bosnian sniper fire, some bloggers are vehemently attacked for presenting their Lindsay Lohan opinion as Lindsay Lohan fact and columnists are reprimanded for asking hypothetical questions such as, "Is it possible to melt down Jocelyn Wildenstein's face to butter my toast?"
Surely a writer, recognizing that fake memoirs and works of plagiarism are discovered as quickly as Wynonna Judd at a nude beach, would do everything in his or her power to avoid any attempts at intentional deception. There can't possibly be writers and journalists who believe that such deceitfulness is possible. Unless of course, the writer is:
Misha Defonseca, a Belgian author whose 1997 memoir, Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years, in which she documented such events as walking for thousands of miles and living with wolves, was proven to be a fraud in February of this year.
Former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who resigned in 2003 after being found to have plagiarized several stories regarding Jessica Lynch.
Kaavya Viswanathan, the Indian-American Harvard student who was found to be a plagiarist after it was discovered that entire sections of her debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, had been lifted from other authors.
William Swanson, the CEO of Raytheon, who in 2006 admitted to plagiarizing his well-known management booklet Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management.
Margaret B. Jones, whose recent memoir, Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival, about her childhood growing up in South-Central Los Angeles among gangs and drugs, was later disproved by Jones' own sister.
The Daily Utah Chronicle columnist Ryan Shattuck, who in 2008 plagiarized this entire list from Wikipedia.
Do these writers doubt the power of the internet? Although some fraudulent stories and books slowly come to light, others appear almost instantly.
Tim Goeglein had been a former special assistant to President Bush and had written a guest column for his hometown paper, the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, for several years. His career came to an abrupt end when a journalist discovered Feb. 28 that Goeglein had plagiarized a story for the paper. He resigned only 24 hours later, after more than 20 of his stories had been discovered to have been copied from other writers.
It's rather disappointing that some writers and journalists allow their desire for money and success to overshadow their respect for the craft of writing.
It was revealed just this week that Thomas Kohnstamm, a travel writer for the Lonely Planet series, had plagiarized a travel book on Columbia because of the simple fact that he had never actually visited Columbia. Although most writers would leap at the opportunity to write about a trip to a foreign country -- barring Iraq or Arkansas -- Kohnstamm felt he was justified by taking the information for his book from a Columbian intern he had been dating at the time.
What is one to conclude from this recent surge in memoir concocting and plagiarism employing? It might be discouraging to learn of what appears to be increasing numbers of fake memoirs and plagiarized news stories, prompting some to wonder how the public is to tell the difference between what is real and what is invented. Nevertheless, I find it encouraging that these accounts continue to appear in the news, as it proves that publishers and editors are becoming increasingly critical -- something from which readers greatly benefit. As a recent story on fake memoirs by Slate.com writer Ben Yagoda puts it, "Memoir fabulists getting caught means the system is working."
As some writers continue to invent stories and steal from others, we'll have to rely increasingly more on editors and publishers to discern the truth -- and hope they aren't deceived themselves.
Unfortunately, we can't say the same about Oprah. Praised be Her name.
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