One of the reasons we started Spinsanity, frankly, was to embarrass those in politics who would try to deceive the public. Even though we knew that we could never catch all the spin, we figured we could at least strengthen the norm against deception, which had atrophied in recent years.
Oprah Winfrey's belated public shaming of James Frey for his largely fictitious memoir willl serve, I think, the same purpose in book publishing, only on a vastly larger scale:
In an extraordinary reversal of her defense of the author whose memoir she catapulted to the top of the best-seller lists, Oprah Winfrey rebuked James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces," on her television show yesterday for lying about his past and portraying the book as a truthful account of his life.
"I feel duped," Ms. Winfrey told Mr. Frey. "But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers."
She added: "I sat on this stage back in September and I asked you, you know, lots of questions, and what you conveyed to me and, I think, to millions of other people was that that was all true."
In particular, she attacked the way the publishing industry fails to fact-check the books it releases:
Ms. Winfrey pointed out that her producers had asked about reports of the book's truth in September, after the Hazelden counselor raised doubts, and that they were reassured by Random House."We asked if you, your company, stood behind James's book as a work of nonfiction at the time, and they said absolutely," Ms. Winfrey said. "And they were also asked if their legal department had checked out the book, and they said yes. So in a press release sent out for the book in 2004 by your company, the book was described as brutally honest and an altering look at -- at addiction. So how can you say that if you haven't checked it to be sure?"
Ms. Talese replied that while the Random House legal department checks nonfiction books to make sure that no one is defamed or libeled, it does not check the truth of the assertions made in a book.
Ms. Winfrey replied, "Well, that needs to change."
Let's hope that Oprah's actions can help spur that change, as the former publisher of Time Warner suggested:
One former publisher said he believed that the publishing industry would have to change its practices at the behest of its biggest patron, Ms. Winfrey. Laurence J. Kirshbaum, who recently retired as the chief executive of the Time Warner Book Group and who now runs his own literary agency, said in an interview yesterday that "there is no question what she said will have a far-reaching impact on our business."
"Agents, publishers and authors are all going to have to be much more cautious in the way they approach the nonfiction market," Mr. Kirshbaum said. "Traditionally, publishers have not done fact-checking and vetting. But I think you are going to see memoirs read not only from a libel point of view but for factual accuracy. And where there are questions of possible exaggeration or distortion, the author is going to need to produce documentation."
Update 1/27: Random House is already scrambling...
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