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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

An M.O. of many fabricators in the world of journalism is to first claim the source(s) can't be tracked down, and then to claim artistic license (this happened with Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe in the late 1990s, and I recall seeing similar incidents at the New York Times and one of the Chicago papers over the years as well). Plagiarism is another problem area for publishers, but their excuse is often along the lines of "my notes got mixed up".

Whatever the case, the frequency of reported cases in the mass media is significant. Poynter has been tracking it for years; here are some of the reported cases from last year:

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/156485/o...

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I hope you enjoyed your 5-min of fame Mike Daisey because your reputation is now completely and irrevocably ruined.

He's probably sold enough tickets over the last 5 months in NY to retire on.

Interestingly his show's run off broadway is scheduled through the 18th; anyone want to start a pool on that?

He can just rebrand it a comedy.

And sell the video on iTunes :)

Macrumors reports that vegetable stands near the theater are running out of tomatoes.

Not so fast.

Remember James Frey (tricked Oprah and her staff).

He's doing quite well, see "current work":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Frey

Oh "one more thing".

There's Henry Blodget as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Blodget

what do you think about James Frey and Henry Blodget?

exactly.

That they're making their way in the world just fine despite their histories, rendering any imaginary cosmic retribution impotent?

The voice of the people is the voice of God.

Big difference.

James Frey lied about his own personal experience and Henry Blodget was involved in securities fraud. They are relatively unknown outside their industry.

Mike Daisey told lies that he presented to news organizations, blogs, etc. as facts -- for money and self-promotion at the expense of a well respected company. CNN, NYTimes, The Washington Post, etc. wrote articles based on Mike Daisey's lies. In my view this is similar to what happened to Dan Rather a few years ago. People will forget, but they will remember.

The public at large has a very short memory. Dan Rather was different: he stuck to his guns rather than dive for the exit by calling it art.

There was enough of a backlash, especially in the literary community (who silently give all memoirs wiggle-room for truthiness), to Oprah's public castigation that James Frey isn't really thought of negatively. More people remember Oprah's childish need for revenge over Frey changing the way a character committed suicide.

What was Blodget accused of fabricating?

My understanding is that he settled when he was accused of touting stocks he didn't like. But I also understand that he actually lost a lot of money on such stocks.

He paid $4m in restitution to investors, but apparently the total amount of lost money that could be traced to his transactions was less than the interest on the $4m over the half-decade after the fine. So the case looks a lot more complicated than the capsule version.

Not in America. There's no such thing as bad publicity. Sure he won't get hired by 'This American Life' or anyone that cares for facts but there's always reality tv.

Not sure about that. See Jason Russell, who has just had a spectacularly bad day. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/16/10721745-report...

He just needs a publicist. Oprah then 'Celebrity' Apprentice = new career.

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