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Note: Readers can find an overview of the way fabricated columns in Slate magazine were exposed (and the role this site played in exposing them) by reading this column by James Taranto, in the Wall Street Journal. Here are some other items from the Journal's online presence, OpinionJournal.com, that also refer to the role played by this site. Below is the first of three columns about the Slate fabrications. A Hoax From Slate? by Ken Sanes From Forman's account, monkeyfishing sounds sadistic enough to arouse an army of animal rights activists. Describing his one monkeyfishing expedition to the island, Forman says that first the bait was put on the hook and then the monkeyfisherman cast it onto the island. The monkeys then "swarmed round the treat, and when the fisherman felt a strong tug he jerked the pole. I knew he had hooked one by the shriek it made-a primal yowl that set my hair on end. The monkey came flying from the trees, a juicy apple stapled to its palm." Slate thought enough of this account to place it toward the top of its front page. "The Shame of Fishing for Monkeys," its headline says, next to an illustration that plays on a reversal, showing a monkey hooking a person. Slate's desire to play up the piece is understandable. After all, it is nicely written. In fact, it starts off like a children's story -- "Once upon a time in the Florida Keys there was a horrible monkey-infested island called Lois Key…." And it includes dramatic descriptions that seem to bring a hidden reality to life. But the effective way the column tells a story isn't surprising since Slate describes Jay Forman, the writer, elsewhere on its site as an author of children's books. And barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com list a Jay Forman as the author of a parody "Chicken Pies for the Soul". Unfortunately, I can't tell you if that is the same Jay Forman. After an initial communication via email and then my notifying him of the posting of an earlier version of this article, he hasn't yet responded further. The subject of my emails to him was on whether, in fact, his column on monkeyfishing is itself a fictional story and a parody of a journalistic column, although I didn't phrase it exactly that way. The column "Best of the Web Today" by the Wall Street Journal clearly believes Forman's article was fiction. On Friday, it ran an item that said it appeared Michael Kinsley, the editor of Slate, "has fallen for an obvious hoax" and that "Forman's account of his "monkeyfishing" expedition is preposterous". Monkey fishing is actually a term used for a way of catching fish," the column said. "No primates, aside from the fishermen, are involved, though Jay Forman does seem to have made a monkey out of Mike Kinsley," it concluded. So were some of the people at Slate victims (or perpetrators) of a fake column? To find out, I looked at two other columns on Slate that carried the byline Jay Forman. Both had potential problems. One, dated March 27, describes Forman's alleged experiences mixing alcohol and guns. "A Beer and a Shot/ Probing the synergy between guns and liquor," the headline says. The column once again describes an unusual sport that was engaged in at the expense of animals. "Two friends of mine once shared a rat-infested house in Baton Rouge because the rent was cheap," Forman writes. "They saved money on an exterminator by simply picking off any rats that wandered into range with a .22-caliber rifle. They'd kick back on the sofa, drink beer, and snuff rodents. It was like living inside a big video game." The column goes on to describe how he and his friend, Haim, built "a homemade silencer for a beat-up old AR-7 rifle" by using a "drill press to vent the barrel in several locations" and utilizing such materials as steel wool and cotton wadding, PVC pipe and duct tape. But, after the column appeared, Slate published messages from at least two readers saying this "silencer" made no sense. One wrote: " No. That purported silencer, as described, simply, factually would not work." Another reader said he believed the column was a fake. He listed several possibilities that would explain the column and concluded the most likely one was that "this is a made up story and Jay is implying that with looser gun laws, everyone will behave this way?" Despite these criticisms, there is no evidence that Slate editors made any effort to find out whether the column described something that can actually be done. Instead, there is simply a note that refers to the "Fray" or reader forum, which says "The Fray Team is unable to judge who is right on the subject of venting…." in the creation of the silencer. Then there is the third column by Forman, dated April 23 and headlined "The Booty Business/ My life in pornography", which describes what Forman says was his job for an adult magazine. The column once again includes details that have a literary quality to them, including his unexpectedly "quick promotion to managing editor of the company's Internet division." There are the colorful and counter-intuitive insights into an exotic world, just as in the monkeyfishing story. For example, there is his description of how, "We engaged in endless discussions over the flaws of one silicone-inflated blonde versus another. 'One of her eyes is higher than the other!' 'Her toes are too long!' Editorial and art would square off on issues like these and debate for hours before breaking for lunch at the Palm, where we would suck down martinis and three-pound lobsters until 7 or so." The column even includes an account of the tense relations with the consulate of Madagascar, which is said to have occupied the office next door. This may all just be a story well told, of course. But there is one other detail that Forman provides, which casts everything else in a different light: "My specialty was writing booty letters to the magazine, which are, by the way, completely bogus," he wrote. "I was the David Halberstam of porn, churning out tales of erotic intrigue by the dozen. The trick is to write from a woman's point of view and say what men want to hear." If this account is true, Forman admits to having written invented material as a journalist. So we have three columns about out-of-the-ordinary activities. Each is full of colorful and surprising details such as monkeys being fished out of trees and rats being picked off inside an apartment with guns, as if they are targets in a video game. In two of the columns, questions have been raised about whether what is being described is true, and about whether the column is a hoax. The questions about the alcohol and guns column were raised back in March, with no obvious effort to investigate them. In the third column, the author admits to fabricating letters as part of his job. But there is no evidence that any alarm bells went off at Slate. Why didn't anyone notice? In his email response to me Sunday over the monkeyfishing column, Forman (at least I assume it was Forman) defended his work against the allegation by the Wall Street Journal. "The column is true. I don't see why the WSJ says that people wouldn't do such a thing when the media each day is saturated with cruelties humans perpetuate on each other….In any case, if you have visited Key West, you might know that people tend to be a little more offbeat down there than they are in the offices of the WSJ….The writers at the WSJ, if they (truly) believe people are incapable of this sort of thing, should go outside for a walk and look around with open eyes for a change. As for me, I am a writer living in New Orleans. I am actually a pretty normal guy who has just been in lots of weird situations. I just keep my eyes open, try to remain impartial, and write about what I see." At this point anything is possible -- that something has been put over on Slate or that someone at Slate has put one over on the rest of us, or I suppose, that only some of the information in these columns is untrue. But these columns also point to something else -- that Slate is a magazine that often goes for a kind of cutesy high-brow journalism. Unlike Salon, much of the work on Slate seems to substitute games with words and ideas for passion. All too often Slate offers readers the journalistic equivalent of monkeyfishing, which may be why, in its eyes, that column had a strange appeal.
Updates: * Regarding "monkeyfishing", one person familiar with fishing said this: "I couldn't find any information to support that claim, and I highly doubt the accuracy of it. While stout tackle and heavy line could do the trick, the hook would probably pull right out of the flesh if the monkey gave any fight at all. Hooks are designed to embed in the (bony) jaws of fish. And if you're fishing for "soft mouthed" fish (such as crappie and trout) you use lighter tackle -- tackle that wouldn't have the backbone to reel in a terrified animal." * Lt Roy Payne of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who lives near Lois Key and is very familiar with the area, says he has never heard of monkeyfishing and wonders if it would even be possible to get close enough, given the shallow water around the island. * As reported by the Journal, the island did have a large number of monkeys on it once. Here is an article on CNN.com about the monkeys. * Jay Forman responded to my email and said he worked as managing editor for High Society magazine's website when he lived in New York, and he is the author of Chicken Pies for the Soul. He also wrote, "The stuff is all real. I did build the silencer. It worked just as described. If you don't (believe) it is possible, try it yourself." * One person with familiarity with guns, who I asked about the silencer, said, "I haven't heard of that one, but I guess the story is on the right track, If you think about it, it probably works like a car muffler. Imagine what the sound waves look like before the muffler, Bop--Bop--Bop etc.. After the muffler its more of a constant purr, All a muffler does is to slow down the speed of the high pressure air as it leaves the exhaust. And fill the space between the Bops with air, Just evens the Air pressure out over time...Now the disclaimer, I have never seen one on a rifle or off, So I couldn't tell you how they work, I'm only guessing." A second person wrote, "the process you described certainly *sounds* like it would work... indeed it sounds an awful lot like the "integral suppressors" (offered) for sale..." - - - - - - - This will give you access to the three columns in Slate with the byline Jay
Forman.
This is the Journal article. The item is on the bottom |
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