Journalists Speak Out

When the investigative website The Smoking Gun raised questions about the validity of James Frey's memoir A Million Little Pieces, many journalists wrote about the controversy. Headlines across the country read: !he "an Who #onned $%rah and & "illion 'ittle 'ies. $%rah invited journalists Fran( )ich and )ichard #ohen to be on the show along with *oynter +nstitute fellow )oy *eter #lar(. Joel ,tein, ,tanley #rouch and "aureen -owd also had comments. Oprah: )ichard #ohen is a Washington Post columnist who wrote in the case of James Frey: !he liar whose memoir turns out to have a good deal of fiction alongside fact. .)ichard #ohen also/ said, $%rah is not only wrong but deluded. &nd + was im%ressed with that. + was im%ressed with that because + thought sometimes criticism can be very hel%ful. ,o than( you very much. 0ou were right. + was wrong. What do you want to say1 Richard Cohen: + would say to the %ublishing industry, you guys have got to cut this out. 0ou're not little sho%s anymore with two or three %eo%le wor(ing with quills. 0ou're %art of large cor%orations. Hire somebody for 234,555, 265,555 a year as a fact chec(er. & fact chec(er would have found out in a half an hour that some of this boo( didn't wor( because the boo( doesn't %ass the smell test. 7 When it doesn't %ass the smell test, you give it to a fact chec(er. Wor( it out. ,omebody could have done what !he ,mo(ing 8un did. !hey could have done it. *ublishers have to do it from here on end. !here is a difference between truth and fiction. We find this out all the time. 9ow we're finding it out again. !his was a betrayal of his readers. +t was a betrayal of you. Oprah: Why do you thin( it was a betrayal of his readers1 Richard Cohen: :ecause they were told this actually ha%%ened. !hey were told this is true. + (now nothing about addiction. ;ery little about addiction. +'m only addicted to bagels and that's it. :ut you tal(ed to %eo%le about this, %eo%le who (now about addiction, and they said the first ste% is truth. !he first ste% is self<accountability. #oming to terms. Oprah: 0eah. Richard Cohen: + was sitting in the audience watching what was ha%%ening before and + was thin(ing to myself about James, Why are you doing this1 Why is he doing this1 :ecause he could have said=and + thin( a *) guy would have said= Wal( away. Just say you've tal(ed and you said all you have to say and that's it. Why go bac( and confront and confess1 :ut if this is the first ste% towards truth, towards actually owning what ha%%ened to him and going on, then it's a healthy thing he did. Oprah: 0eah. !han( you. Oprah: Joining us is Fran( )ich, a New York Times columnist who recently wrote that James Frey reminds us that we live in an age of truthiness. What do you mean by7e>%lain that. Frank Rich: !ruthiness is a word, of course, that's been %o%ulari?ed by ,te%hen #olbert of #omedy #entral. Oprah: 0eah. Frank Rich: + mean we live in this word now where this is just sort of the ti% of the iceberg, this memoir, where anyone can sort of %ut out something that sort of loo(s true, smells a little bit li(e truth but, in fact, is in some way fictionali?ed. 0ou loo( at anything from @nron fooling %eo%le and creating this aura of a great business ma(ing huge %rofits when it was an em%ty shell, or %eo%le in the government telling us that mushroom clouds are going to come our way if we don't invade +raq for months when it was on faulty and %ossibly sus%ect intelligence. $r even things we label reality in entertainment li(e reality television. +t's cast. +t's somewhat scri%ted. 0ou see Jessica ,im%son and 9ic( 'achey as ha%%y newlyweds. !he reality show is over, they get divorced and s%lit the %rofits.

Oprah: 0eah. ,o what do you want to say about what you've heard today1 Frank Rich: Well, + thin( it's ama?ing television. + mean, + thin( that + share )ichard's view. + thin( it's great that you u% and too( a stand and the hardest thing to do is admit a mista(e7 Oprah: +n front of millions of %eo%le. Frank Rich: +n front of millions of %eo%le. Oprah: )oy *eter #lar( is a senior scholar and %rofessor at the *oynter +nstitute. +t's a school for journalists. ,o whose res%onsibility is it, do you thin(, to chec( the facts in a boo(1 Dr. Clark: + thin( there needs to be, most im%ortant, truth in advertising. When James writes, )emember the truth. +t's all that matters. !hat's such a %owerful, %owerful statement in addiction, in recovery, in journalism, in race relations, and %ersonal relations, that + thin( the im%ortant thing that you're doing today is ta(ing that %endulum which says that memoir is truthful e>ce%t for the %arts that are lies and you're reestablishing and you're challenging %ublishers to label what's going on in the boo(. &nd that, + thin(, is what we should do. Joel Stein Time maga?ine staff writer +t's wrong and immoral to %ass off a %iece of fiction as a memoir, and + wouldn't do it. 0ou (now, + felt li(e he was a liar and a weasel. :ut the more + thought about it, + still loved the boo(. When + found out a lot of it had been made u%, it didn't really change how + felt about the te>t. :ut it certainly changed how + felt about the author. + thin( %eo%le can sense when the detailed truth isn't true and the bigger truth is true. +t doesn't e>cuse what he did. +t's still wrong if someone lied to you. 0ou resent them. Stanley Crouch New York Daily News columnist $%rah Winfrey is, number one, the queen of goodwill in the Anited ,tates. &nd she was had. +t's that sim%le. +s he a liar alone1 $r was he coerced by -oubleday .%ublisher of A Million Little Pieces/ into becoming a bigger liar1 !hat's the real question. Maureen Dowd New York Times columnist James Frey very clearly lied to %romote his boo( and + don't thin( that should get the $%rah seal of a%%roval. +t's just very disa%%ointing that the %ublishing house doesn't care. !hey're just counting their money. &nd readers don't care. +t's gone to the to% of the bestseller list. :ut somebody has to stand u% for truth. !his is not a close call. + read this quote in The New York Times from "ichi(o Ba(utani, who said it best, + thin(, says $%rah. ,he says, '!his is not about truth in labeling or the misre%resentation of one author. 7 +t is a case about how much value contem%orary culture %laces on the very idea of truth.' &nd + believe that the truth matters.