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 second of three columns about the Slate fabrications. It is a response to Michael Kinsley's column, "Editor's Note: Was Slate Had?" It was sent to Slate as a letter to the editor.

A Response to Michael Kinsley

June 14, 2001

I assume that Michael Kinsley is referring to me, among others, when he says that skeptics have expressed doubts about three columns published in Slate. Since I believe my column on the Reform web site is the original source of many of these doubts, along with OpinionJournal, let me respond in the hopes that Slate has the integrity to put my response where people can see it. 

What we have here is a situation in which a talented writer, Jay Forman, has published columns in Slate that read like tall tales. They are so outlandish (or at least two of them are) that even Michael Kinsley refers to them as "wild yarns". But these columns include virtually no information that can be used to identify the truthfulness of what Forman is saying. And Forman himself admits (or at least says) in one of the columns that he routinely fabricated letters as part of a job for a magazine.

Under these circumstances, it is appropriate for people to raise questions about whether the columns are true. Kinsley's claim, in regard to one of the columns, that "at some point the burden of proof shifts to those making the accusation" of false information, is as wrong as it can be. The burden of proof is on Slate to demonstrate why these columns have credibility.

Unfortunately, Slate has been doing the opposite. It made little effort to check the material in these columns ahead of time, and it appears that no alarm bells went off at various crucial junctures. Now, it is falsely claiming the issue is resolved.

The most controversial of the three columns in contention describes the sport of "monkeyfishing" that was supposedly practiced at Lois Key in which monkeys were captured using fishing poles, with a hook embedded in fruit, which was used as bait. The hook is said to have stuck in the monkey's palm so the monkey was pulled from the trees before finally being released. 

In the updates section at the bottom of my column, I reported Tuesday that "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". Inside.com referred to my conversation with him and also said several reporters who have worked in the Keys doubt the story. In addition, I quote a fisherman expressing doubt about whether such a thing is physically possible. 

But Kinsley doesn't address these issues. Nor does he provide links that would allow people to read these criticisms for themselves, other than a link to the first of a number of items done by OpinionJournal, which first raised questions about the "monkeyfishing" column. Instead, Kinsley offers one unnamed friend of Jay Forman who says he went on the monkeyfishing expedition, as a source who can verify that it took place. This unnamed source is one of various unnamed people in Jay Forman's columns, including Haim the drunk builder of an illegal silencer; the friends in Baton Rouge who sat on their sofa shooting rats in the house with a rifle(!); the people who fished for rats in a bar, and so on.

Kinsley also defends another column in which Forman claims he and a friend created an illegal silencer for a rifle while drunk and then tried it out by shooting various objects, including a jar of cocktail onions on the living room mantle. According to Kinsley, an expert on guns has verified that it is possible to build a silencer in the way Forman described. And another unnamed source reports seeing the silencer under construction. These are some of the facts Kinsley uses to pronounce the columns okay. 

I published a number of comments in my updates section the day before that said it is possible to build such a silencer, so I believe that may be correct. That doesn't, mean, however, that the silencer was built and used in the drunken shooting spree, as Forman described.

More to the point, that isn't what I criticized in my column. What I found disturbing was that after the silencer column came out in March, Slate prominently published at least two letters that said the silencer could not be built as described. Yet Slate made no apparent effort to verify if that was correct, simply saying that it couldn't judge the issue. It was as if the facts didn't matter, even though the integrity of a column rose or fell on that account. Slate also published a letter in March from someone who said he believed the silencer column was made up, which means the first accusation (I'm aware of) that one of these columns was a hoax came from Slate's own pages! 

The basic problem here is that Slate thought it was okay to publish "wild yarns" while doing very little checking -- and it has now offered little proof for most of this material. Slate's claim that "We worked these pieces over hard before they were published, but a lot harder after doubts were raised" doesn't ring true. If Slate checked them before publication, why is it so busy checking them now? Slate's claim that "Some of those doubts were reasonable, though thank goodness they turned out to be unjustified," is obviously an effort to end the debate by falsely claiming the issue is resolved. The claim that "there is no evidence that he made this stuff up and lots of evidence that he didn't," is also untrue.

It is certainly true (as I acknowledged) that I don't know for certain if any of these columns are "hoaxes", although the monkeyfishing episode that was first challenged in OpinionJournal is a prime candidate. I also always assumed that at least some information in the columns would turn out to be true. But I see no reason to believe these outlandish tales unless they are genuinely verified. The real issue is why Slate failed to take the same attitude.

Ken Sanes

Editor's Note: Was Slate Had? by Michael Kinsley
Another OpinionJournal item
New York Post item

Also on June 14 - links added