Literary Liars

Samuel G. Freedman writes in the Columbia Journalism Review that the James Frey controversy was simply The Predictable Scandal.

Meanwhile, changes were made at The Village Voice as a result of the fabricated story on pickup artists. The errant journalist who wrote the article, Nick Sylvester, remains on suspension but he still has a job. Instead, acting editor-in-chief Doug Simmons was fired.

And the ghost of J.T. Leroy just won’t fade away. In the new issue of Black Book “Leroy” writes that “snark is not the new black, it’s the old crack.” In Post-Snark, “Leroy” as he is identified complains that “when did snark become an acceptable pose for journalists, be they bloggers hiding out in daddy’s rec room or fellas fanning themselves under the fearsome moniker of the New York Times?” The writer even goes so far as to bemoan the fact that the snarkists “came for me by saying (of all things) that I do not exist. What better use of snark than to wipe the beach clean of my footprints?”