Success rarely comes more spectacularly than it did to Tennessee Ernie Ford in the 1950s. After breaking into television on "I Love Lucy" in 1954, Ford's recording of "Sixteen Tons" in 1955 became the fastest-selling single in the history of the recording business. Ford was an overnight major star. But there was a cost. Now, in his book "River of No Return," Ford's son Jeffrey Buckner Ford lets us inside the family to see the fame, wealth and success, but also the other side of the coin. Click on this link to listen.
"The Weasel" Shore's persona, wacky sense of humor and penchant for California slang and dude speak all make his comedy unique. Best known for his early-'90s stint on MTV and for the series of film comedies that followed, Shore has been around comedy his entire life. His mom owns both the San Diego and Hollywood locations of The Comedy Store. His dad, also a comedian, is a Chicago native who opened for Elvis Presley in Las Vegas. We caught up with Pauly to find out more about his upcoming show at The Improv in Schaumburg, and to see what he's been up to. Whom exactly
is the nanny taking care of?
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River
of No Return 
Pauly
Shore born to make people laugh-Published: 4/11/2008 12:06 AM 
By
PATRICIA TALORICO, The News Journal 
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January
6, 2008 Killing in Nicaragua Makes Spectacle
of the Courts By MARC LACEY
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Somebody raped and strangled Doris Jiménez
in her tiny clothing boutique 14 months ago. Ever since, Nicaragua’s justice system
has found itself on trial. The case has become both an international dispute and a political
spectacle. And it has proved not who killed Ms. Jiménez, but that justice here
is a nebulous concept, subjective to the point of abstraction. Nicaragua’s president has weighed in on the Jiménez case, as has
the United States State Department. Nicaragua’s Supreme Court has become enmeshed in it. And a judge who ruled
on it is watching his back out of fear that he might be killed, too. Last February, a Nicaraguan judge convicted Eric Volz, an American
who is now 28, of killing Ms. Jiménez, 25, a Nicaraguan whom he had dated on and
off. Mr. Volz, a native of Nashville, who sold real estate and ran a magazine
in Managua, the capital, insisted he had a solid alibi and bore no grudge against
her. But after a three-day trial, the judge, Ivette Toruño, said she was convinced
that he and another man were guilty. Whether Mr. Volz really was the culprit, however, has never been
clear. He presented evidence that he was in Managua on Nov. 21, 2006, when someone
entered Ms. Jiménez’s boutique near Rivas, about 55 miles to the south, and strangled
her. Friends and acquaintances backed up his account. So did cellphone records
that traced his phone to the capital around the time Ms. Jiménez was believed
to have been killed and computer records that showed he was communicating by instant
message around that time. None of that swayed the judge, or the community. Although no physical evidence tied Mr. Volz to the crime, one witness
did, a local surfer, Nelson López. Mr. López was initially arrested in the case
but was later granted immunity for his testimony, pointing his finger at the American.
And the local population clearly viewed Mr. Volz as the killer. When he was being
transferred to the courthouse in Rivas during the trial, the police had to keep
back angry residents who appeared ready to attack him. Mr. Volz received a 30-year sentence and began serving it while his
lawyer challenged the conviction. From his cell, Mr. Volz told whomever would
listen that the courts had the wrong man. Back in the United States, his family
and friends started a campaign to win his release, selling “Free Eric Volz” T-shirts,
bracelets and bumper stickers for a legal defense fund and setting up a Web site
(www.friendsofericvolz.com) to spread word of what
they called an unjust conviction. Then, on Dec. 17, an appeals court in Granada, a city southeast of
Managua, ruled that Mr. Volz and his supporters were right. Two members of a three-judge panel decided that he was probably not
the killer and that local passions probably had prompted the conviction. They
ordered him released. The third judge, Norman Miranda, a member of the ruling
Sandinista Party, found deficiencies in the case that merited a retrial but did
not order Mr. Volz freed. All three judges agreed that the Nicaraguan co-defendant in the case,
Julio Martín Chamorro, ought to remain in jail. Roberto Rodríguez, the judge who wrote the decision in Mr. Volz’s
favor, said in an interview late last month that he initially presumed Mr. Volz
to be guilty. But after reviewing the record of the trial, he became convinced
that the evidence indicated that the young American could not have been the killer,
he said. His ruling was not enough to get Mr. Volz out of jail right away.
The trial judge, Ms. Toruño, delayed releasing him for days, raising excuse after
excuse. Another judge, Mr. Miranda, temporarily lost Mr. Volz’s case file. The
State Department called on Nicaragua to follow its own laws and release him. Meanwhile, prosecutors appealed the release order and sought to keep
Mr. Volz behind bars. But Mr. Volz was somehow released and left the country,
which shocked Julio Centeno, Nicaragua’s chief prosecutor. “How he got out, I
don’t know,” Mr. Centeno said in an interview on Dec. 27, four days after Mr.
Volz left. Rushed through the streets of Managua under high security, Mr. Volz
entered the airport through a private entrance and hopped on a private plane.
Government officials stamped his passport and ushered him out. “We’re not celebrating,” Mr. Volz said Friday in a telephone interview.
“They continue to persecute me.” Mr. Rodríguez, the judge who ruled in Mr. Volz’s favor, said he knew
that his ruling would be controversial. But even he was surprised by the uproar
that followed. Nicaraguans of all walks of life condemned the ruling, lashing out
at Mr. Rodríguez and his colleague Alejandro Estrada Sequeira. In many Nicaraguans’
eyes, a rich American had been freed through his clout, and a poor Nicaraguan
had been left behind to suffer. “This killer had the money to pay the judges,” said Sylvia Sánchez,
a friend of Ms. Jiménez. President Daniel Ortega, who regularly criticizes Washington, weighed
in, pointing out with scorn that the two judges who released the American convict
had been appointed by parties who oppose his governing Sandinistas. Mayra Sirias, coordinator of Nicaragua’s Network of Women Against
Violence, called Mr. Volz’s acquittal “the product of a corrupt judicial system
that let a killer and rapist go free.” Mercedes Alvarado, the victim’s mother, told reporters that Mr. Rodríguez
ought to be arrested and serve the rest of Mr. Volz’s term. Others called for
him to be thrown in the ocean. Many questioned his patriotism because he carries
dual Nicaraguan and United States citizenship. “I’m going to fight for my integrity,” vowed Mr. Rodríguez, who nonetheless
said he was afraid because of all the threats against him. “I want to be very
clear: I couldn’t live with my conscience if I kept someone in prison for 30 years
for something I don’t think he did.” This case unlike any other then attracted the attention of the nation’s
highest court. Ordering an investigation into the two judges who freed Mr. Volz,
two Sandinista members of the Supreme Court said they intended to question everyone
involved to find out whether any malfeasance had occurred. Mr. Volz, now in the United States but still lying low because he
fears for his life, condemned the inquiry into the judges who freed him. “It’s a continuation of the same injustice,” he said. Mr. Volz contends that a prominent Nicaraguan family with ties to
the ruling party, whom he declined to name, is behind Ms. Jiménez’s killing. He
portrays all the legal wrangling since his departure as part of a cover-up. Those who are certain that Mr. Volz killed Ms. Jiménez and those
equally insistent that he did not agree on one thing: the case has laid bare the
deficiencies in Nicaraguan justice. Decisions are believed to be bought and sold.
Politics infiltrates judges’ chambers. Confidence in the system is as low as it
can be. “Our justice system had a bad reputation before,” said Jaime Morales,
the country’s vice president, “and this case didn’t help.” See: The Bridge by Michael Glasgow, Thomas
Nelson Publishers, Spring, 2008 |
The Baltimore Sun--Intermarry and be Merry By Arthur Blecher
Meanwhile,
two Jews who each marry non-Jews will collectively produce an average of more
than four children. Even the pessimistic National Jewish Population Survey acknowledged
that the vast majority of these kids grow up with either an exclusively Jewish
identity or a dual Jewish-gentile identity. |
It's
hard to imagine a cozier holiday scene than the whole family gathered together
to trim the tree. But for 2.5 million Americans in Jewish-Christian households,
this is a scenario fraught with tension and feelings of betrayal.
Lincoln writer wins national arts fellowship By CINDY LANGE-KUBICK / Lincoln Journal Star
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Wednesday,
Dec 12, 2007 - 12:25:55 am CST|
"Oh, Alan," Perle said with some surprise. "I'd like you to meet . . . " But I already knew who his guest was. "Yes, sir," I said, extending my hand. "I recognize you from your photographs." My, my, I thought. Mr. Perle is at it again. The exiting guest was Farid Ghadry, an exiled Syrian dissident who, like Perle, believes it's past time to replace Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Ghadry, who heads a Washington-based group called the Syrian Reform Party, hopes to be the man in charge one day in Damascus. When I met him, he had already been granted audiences with David Wurmser, Vice President Dick Cheney's top Middle East advisor and Perle protege, and with Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, who headed the State Department's Iran-Syria desk from 2005 until last June. I asked Wurmser about Ghadry. Was he another Ahmad Chalabi, the checkered Iraqi exile whom the United States backed as a Saddam Hussein replacement in Iraq? "He's not asking for money, and we're not advocating money for him," Wurmser told me. "As for him wanting power, sure, he probably has an agenda. But it doesn't matter. This is where you go back to the Soviet Union, because it's the same question that we always work with, from Lech Walesa to Vaclav Havel: 'Did they have an understanding of the malady and danger posed by the totalitarian regime in their country?' " The scenario of the U.S. backing exiles to aid in "democratizing" Middle Eastern countries is so appealing to Perle, Wurmser and their like-minded friends that they continue to pursue it despite past failures. Perle, of course, was the most prominent and aggressive advocate of Chalabi, dubbed the "Jay Gatsby of Iraq" for his social life and financial scandals, as the leader of a new Iraq. That effort collapsed when the Iraqi people, finally given a chance to vote in January 2005, did not award Chalabi's party a single seat in the new parliament. Perle insists that his man, who has a new job with the Baghdad government, was the victim of a smear campaign led by the State Department and the CIA. The Chalabi experience has not muted Perle's unabashed affection for dissidents. "I think the best way to bring about regime change," he told me, "is to help decent people who are powerless without outside help." People such as 32-year-old Amir Abbas Fakhravar, an Iranian dissident now living in exile in the United States. In a 2006 Washington Post Op-Ed article, Perle promoted Fakhravar as a heroic and inspirational figure around whom oppressed Iranians could rally, if only he were given America's support. Fakhravar is president of the Iran Enterprise Institute, which takes its name and some of its financial support from the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, of which Perle is a resident fellow. In the coming weeks, Fakhravar will be speaking at a conference in Palm Beach, Fla., on the subject of regime change in Tehran, addressing the Heritage Foundation in Washington and then heading to Rome to deliver a lecture on "Democracy in the Islamic World." Just recently, he was the honored guest at DePaul University's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," where he was introduced as "the hero of our age." His story, as he and his supporters tell it, could be a Hollywood script. Young, handsome, bold Iranian student leads the oppressed and downtrodden against the crushing tyranny of the mullahs, rising up, a la "Les Miserables." He stands atop the barricades during student protests in Iran in 1999 and is then imprisoned and tortured. He communicates with the West from Tehran's maximum-security Evin prison via a cellphone and escapes to freedom, with a shoot-to-kill order hanging over his head. Unfortunately, Fakhravar's detractors, including some Iranian dissidents and exiles, insist that his story might as well be a Hollywood script. In a report last November in Mother Jones, Laura Rozen interviewed Iranian dissidents and journalists who cast doubt on Fakhravar's story. They claim, for example, that in their experience, political prisoners at Evin weren't allowed to use cellphones to communicate with the outside world. And, they say, he did not so much escape from prison, he simply went AWOL while on a kind of furlough that prisoners could sometimes arrange. As for other harrowing details, in reality he took a regular flight to Dubai (where he was met by Perle). Most important, Rozen's sources told her, Fakhravar was never a major figure in the student uprising of 1999. Writing in Progressive magazine, Muhammad Sahimi, a chemical engineering professor at USC, lists Fakhravar among the exiles who have no credibility in Iran: "They are not even known there." Although Amnesty International lists Fakhravar among those tortured by the Tehran regime, it uses the word "reportedly" to describe his ordeal. Perle insists that Fakhravar is being smeared by forces opposed to aggressive regime change. But the fundamental problem for Perle and like-minded others is that the men they are supporting lack the stature of their successful and illustrious predecessors, the Walesas and Havels. In the first place, Walesa and Havel did not operate in exile; they remained in their countries despite repeated imprisonment, government pressure and threats. There was never any question that they were recognized as the real thing -- opposition leaders -- by the throngs in the shipyards of Gdansk and St. Wenceslas Square. They may have had personal as well as altruistic ambitions and motives, but they were nothing if not authentic. Which brings us back to America's Middle East wannabe heroes. Take Ghadry, an American-educated Arab with a passion for technology start-ups as well as saving Syria. Unfortunately for Perle, Ghadry is seen in many quarters as a front man for Israel. Not only is he a dues-paying member of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful Israeli lobby in Washington, but a recent column on his website, titled "Why I Admire Israel," seems to play right into the hands of those who believe the Bush administration's obsession with regime change in the Middle East is really all about protecting Israel. Did Perle, the savviest of Washington power players, believe that Ghadry's tub-thumping for Tel Aviv would make him more popular in Syria? "No," Perle replied. "I don't. But he's his own man. I don't always understand what he's doing and why he's doing it." So, in his quest for idealistic dissidents to do in the Middle East what the Walesas and Havels achieved in Eastern Europe, Perle and his acolytes have tapped the discredited Ahmad Chalabi for Iraq, the suspect Amir Abbas Fakhravar for Iran and the allegiance-challenged Fahrid Ghadry for Syria. They're just not making heroes like they used to. Alan Weisman is the author of the first biography of Richard Perle, "Prince of Darkness -- Richard Perle: The Kingdom, the Power, and the End of Empire in America." |
Richard
Perle is again propping up regime-toppling Mideast dissidents who lack credibility.|
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Tale of two worlds: reporter and mom Sharon O'Donnell Through the news studio window, the New York City streets and skyline glistened in the morning sunlight as Cary resident Amanda Lamb sat in the guest chair on “The Today Show.” She was on the show several weeks ago to be interviewed about her first book, Smotherhood, a book of humorous and honest essays about motherhood. Lamb was relaxed and personable, answering questions from anchor Ann Curry and discussing the struggles of working mothers. The Sept. 10 appearance garnered tremendous publicity for the book, sending sales numbers upward. Afterward, “Smotherhood” was listed No. 4 in the parenting category on the Amazon hit rankings. Lamb, the mother of two young daughters, is currently balancing her job and parenting duties with book signings. Lamb is well known in the Triangle area because she has been a reporter for WRAL-TV for the past 13 years, covering mostly hard news and crime. But not many people know that Lamb is also an author with two books coming out in the next year. Her other book is a true crime story called “Deadly Dose,” which is about the Eric Miller arsenic murder and is told from the perspective of a veteran homicide investigator whose crusade for truth finally led to an arrest. The book will be released in June. I met Lamb over a decade ago when she first came to a meeting of the local writers group I had been a member of for several years. At the time, I had two young sons, and she was yet to have children, although she and her husband were contemplating the decision. I remember her saying she really enjoyed sleeping in past 11 a.m. on the weekends and how she guessed they wouldn’t be able to do that any longer if they had kids. I looked at her and said point blank, “Amanda, with kids, there’s no way you’d sleep past 11. You’d be lucky to make it to 8.” Her smile faded when I said this, but I figured I’d better level with her about the realities of parenthood. This news must not have been too dissuading for her because several years later, Lamb and her husband had their first child. She has now seen some of those realities of parenting up close and personal. Along the way, she started to write about these experiences and eventually became a regular blogger on dot-moms.com, a Web site featuring 40 women from around the world who blog about being a mom. Lamb started writing longer pieces about parenting and submitted them to the members of the writers group. The theme of a lot of her essays was the juxtaposition of her two different worlds: one world filled with reporting from murder trials in a courtroom or from a Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Gulf coast, while her other world was consumed by potty training, setting up play dates, preschool volunteer responsibilities and Indian Princesses. Our writers group members told her we thought there was definitely an audience for her essays. “Really?” Lamb asked. “You think so?” She began putting together the book, and her mother came up with the perfect name for it; the title “Smotherhood” says a lot in itself: Mothers love their children immensely, but sometimes, yes, to be candid, it does feel like we’re smothered by all the demands and expectations placed on us. Soon Lamb had an agent, then a publisher, and then suddenly somehow, she found herself on “The Today Show.” When her publicist called her to tell her he’d booked her on the show, she admits she was overwhelmed. “That’s every author’s dream,” she said, “but believe it or not, I was a little nervous knowing the whole country, including my parents, would be watching.” She said her mom and dad sent out hundreds of e-mails telling everyone to tune in and that they got a huge kick out of watching, particularly because they live in Pennsylvania and rarely get to see her on television. Lamb said her children, 7-year-old Mallory and 4-year-old Chloe, don’t know the difference between national and local TV so for them it was just another day at the office for Mommy. Then Lamb added, “Except for the fact that I was gone overnight in New York, which annoyed them to no end.” Lamb’s honesty in “Smotherhood” surprises some people. Lamb said she says things out loud in the book that women think about but are afraid to say because women have been socialized not to say anything negative about motherhood. “It’s about those times,” Lamb explained, “when your kids are having meltdowns and you think about walking out the door, getting in your car and driving away, but you don’t of course. “It’s about those times when they are driving you crazy and you do something that’s not politically correct — like let those balloons from the grocery store out the sunroof after your kids have hit them into your face while you’re driving one too many times.” Lamb said there is a constant supply of material to write about with young kids. And with a possible “Smotherhood 2” on the horizon, she’s glad she has an endless source of inspiration for parenting anecdotes. Even if it means she doesn’t get to sleep in past eleven on weekends. |
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Carnal Knowledge | Condoms: A look
at their place in history
Take the 17th century, when they were sold openly to men and women by tailors and taverns or through special shops, says Aine Collier, a University of Maryland professor and author of a book on prophylactics through the ages. Casanova "was passionate about condoms," she says, and would often entertain women by blowing the condoms up, which also tested for holes. She maintains that the 18th- A condom advertisement from the 1930s, reprinted from "The Humble Little Condom: A History." century libertine was particularly diligent when having sex with nuns, although his autobiography mentions one nun who supplied her own. Collier, who teaches history and English, learned all that after a romance writer asked whether it would be historically accurate for her 17th-century heroine to slide a condom onto her lover's tumescent manhood, or whatever she called it. The subject caught her imagination as a lens through which to view human nature, politics, commerce, and power struggles between the sexes. So she gathered enough lore to write The Humble Little Condom: A History, to be released by Prometheus Books next month. The condom was officially invented and reinvented more times than the wheel, especially by sausage manufacturers who kept noticing what else you might put in that casing. Condoms may predate even the sausage, having evolved from various other types of penis coverings used as long ago as ancient Egypt. The concept may go back even further. A cave painting at Grotte des Combarelles in France that was determined to be at least 12,000 years old shows what appears to be a couple coupling, Collier says, "and it looked for all the world as if the man had covered himself with some kind of animal skin." But condoms took off big time in the late 16th century, when they were made from linen or animal stomachs or other innards. "They were very crude," Collier points out, fitting like a Baggie and secured with plain twine or colored ribbon. People of the powdered-wig era liked the protection their condoms offered from unwanted pregnancy as well as from syphilis and other infections. In the 1870s, however, morality czar Anthony Comstock launched a war on condoms in America. He and various New York businessmen pushed what was known as the Comstock Act through Congress in 1873. It outlawed pornography as well as the sale or purchase of condoms and other birth-control devices.Collier's research found that 3,873 people were arrested and more than 2,900 convicted for condom-related crimes, among them giving lectures that advocated birth control. "The States are still trying to recover," says Collier, who spent part of her childhood in England. |
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Harry
Potter Trivia Book on the Block
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Marlise Elizabeth Kast went from being a minister's daughter to a celebrity's worst nightmare: a tabloid journalist. Chasing Matt Lauer through Egypt, crashing William Shatner's wedding and posing as Leonardo DiCaprio's neighbor are just some of the things Kast did during her three year working for Globe magazine. As a tabloid reporter, she was always trying to find the scoop and the story on anyone and everyone famous in Hollywood. But now the tables have turned and Kast has bared all in her memoir, Tabloid Prodigy: Dishing the Dirt, Getting the Gossip, and Selling My Soul in the Cutthroat World of Hollywood Reporting. "When I was working for the tabloids, I had no intention of eventually writing a book about my experience," Kast told The Book Standard. "But it was one of those things that after I left the tabloids, I'd be at a dinner party and somebody would say, 'My gosh, you've got the craziest stories, I can't believe you did that. You've got to write a book!'" Using her personal journals, published articles and careful notes from her time at Globe, Kast did just that. Tabloid Prodigy was published earlier this month by Running Press. In promoting the book, Kast has appeared on Entertainment Tonight, The O'Reilly Factor and dozens of radio shows, defending her time at Globe. Kast's agent, Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management, is currently co-agenting the film rights with Joel Gotler of IPG. Kast started working for Globe at age 22 and left three years later in 2001. Tabloid Prodigy includes the story of how she danced with Bobby Brown, hoping to get a picture of him trying to kiss her, and posing as a jogger to learn more about Sharon Stone's wedding. But even though Kast spills all about working for a tabloid, she said she hasn't had any problems from Globe employees or celebrities mentioned in the book. "It's my memoir. It's my story," Kast explained. "The person who probably looks the worst in the book is myself." Her internal struggle—between her desire to succeed in tabloid journalism and her religions upbringing and conscience—is a major theme in the book. "I'm just challenging everybody
to read my book so they can discover the real Marlise," Kast said. "[The
book is] raw and it's honest and I'm telling it in my voice, seen through my eyes.
I think that people will realize that the reason why I did leave I because I have
a conscience."
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Becoming
a 'Tabloid Prodigy' |
BY
GEORGE RUSH AND JOANNA RUSH MOLLOY |
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Investigative
Biography of Richard Perle from Union Square Press Union Square Press, the newest imprint of Sterling Publishing, has signed veteran news producer Alan Weisman to write a book on political advisor and lobbyist Richard Perle, to be published in November. Prince of Darkness-Richard Perle: The Kingdom, The Power and the End of Empire in America is not an authorized biography, but Perle did grant Weisman several one-on-one interviews. "This will be an investigative biography of the highest quality, from a writer with superb media connections," said Philip Turner, the editorial director of Union Square Press who acquired the book. "By examining the career of Richard Perle in depth, it will give readers a profound understanding of how American foreign policy has been shaped over the past 30 years, and especially how we were led into war in Iraq." Weisman previously worked with CBS News, 60 Minutes and Charlie Rose and wrote Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather in 2006. He is represented by Sharlene Martin of Martin Literary Management. |
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Size
zero: The boys |
As
they sashay along the catwalks for the beginning of London Fashion Week today,
stick-thin models will be the centre of attention. Yet not all will be women:
boys are now under pressure to achieve "size zero" figures, too.|
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Tan and rested? Not Dan Rather. He's ruddy and revved up. "We're going full
throttle," the ex-CBS News anchor told me yesterday about "Dan Rather
Reports," his upcoming weekly show on Texas zillionaire Mark Cuban's HDNet
cable network, which reaches just 4 million households. Rather's shooting for
a late October or early November debut. "Cuban has given me absolute and
complete editorial control," Rather said over lunch at Table XII. "Cuban
told me, 'I want you to have whatever you need for a quality program,' and he's
been as good as his word, and in many instances better than his word. Budgeting
is one of the things I'm learning. I'm taking a crash course in the MBA school
of hard knocks." 
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How heroes reclaimed the sky Let's not
forget the people of the airline industry on Sept. 11.
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Lone Star: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Dan Rather by Alan Weisman | ||||
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June
18, 2006
I'm
not going to mess up Father's Day for Lou Dantzler by talking about the odds It
all began when Dantzler got home from a gardening job in 1968 — three years
after Instead of calling the police, Dantzler gave the boy
a talking to, took him home to his A construction crew told Dantzler
it would cost $5,000 to remove the damaged roof, and That's right. There are lots of rules.
As Dantzler sees it, half the problem — aside from "As much discipline
as there was in our house, there was twice as much love," Dantzler "I loved coming here
as a kid because Lou didn't stand for none of that gang stuff,"
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June
5, 2006 -- DAN Rather made some surprising enemies during his many years as an
award-winning reporter and anchorman for CBS News - one of them being his "60
Minutes" colleague Morley Safer, who Rather once suggested should have been
shot dead. "Though the author has known and worked with Dan Rather
for decades, in the end Rather decided not to cooperate with the book," Michael
Onorato, a director at Wiley Books, told Page Six's Bill Hoffmann. |
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Book
Cops, Book Cops -Whatcha Gonna Do by Kimberly Maul | ||||
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Book
Cops, Book Cops -Whatcha Gonna Do? February 02, 2006 Indeed, Frey's fabrications have initiated a heated debate about the way publishers vet and fact-check nonfiction books. During the Oprah Winfrey Show on Jan. 23, on which Winfrey confronted and verbally lacerated James Frey and his agent, Nan A. Talese, Winfrey said "this needs to change." Richard Cohen, of the Washington Post, and a guest on the same show, agreed, and pointed out that a fact-checker could have found in "half an hour that some of this book didn't work, because the book doesn't pass the smell test." Bill Bastone, editor of The Smoking Gun, the investigative website that unearthed the fabrications and embellishments that Frey used to write A Million Little Pieces, which was published as a memoir, says, "We've got a lot of letters from people who are working on memoirs or nonfiction books, and they want to know whether we could serve as a pre-publication review of their work so they can say, 'This book has been reviewed by The Smoking Gun and found to be 99.8 percent accurate.' " Yet Bastone has repeatedly said that he does not want his site, which is owned by Court TV, to become the "literary police," sniffing out falsehoods in nonfiction books and prosecuting authors. There are things publishers can do to verify questionable facts in a story, he says: "You can pick up the phone and call and do exactly what we did. Whether that's a fact-checker or a lawyer or an editor, five or ten questions and an hour on the telephone could have nailed you down on the truthfulness of James Frey." The Wall Street Journal recently addressed the notion of fact-checkers in the book-publishing business and in a story on Jan. 30, noted, "Editors and publishers say the profit-margins in publishing don't allow for hiring fact-checkers. Instead they rely on authors to be honest, and on their legal staffs to avoid libels suits." While Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House, declined to comment to The Book Standard, he spoke with the WSJ, commenting that with hundreds to thousands of nonfiction books published each year from a publishing house, the challenge of fact-checking every book is "very daunting." HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster also declined to comment. Martin, agent for nonfiction books including You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again, by Suzanne Hanson, and Take Charge, by Apprentice-winner Kelly Perdew, told The Book Standard that many of her clients spend hours or even days discussing the truthfulness of their work with publishers' in-house attorneys. And, she says, the tide has turned. "Up until now," she says, "their main goal was to check any fact that might result in liability claims against them. And for a while, they may attempt to sift with a finer screen, but then there will, of course, be an attendant increase in production costs." The Smoking Gun's Bastone acknowledges publisher's financial pressures, but says that discussing the truthfulness of facts only when they may prove to be a liability is a poor approach. That, she says, "leaves a lot to be desired on the accuracy front."
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Using
disguises and surp