I don't know if you have been following the story about James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, how the book was inducted into Oprah's Book Club last fall, with him making an appearance on the show, proclaiming the "memoir" as completely true and unaltered. She even delayed announcing her next book club selection by six weeks to give this book more publicity.
Some investigation by The Smoking Gun revealed that many of the accounts in the book were embellished beyond any recognition of truth. For example, the incident where Frey claims to have been in jail for 3 months, was actually only a matter of hours. The character known as Lily, whom he claimed to have hanged herself because she couldn't "hold on" while he was in jail, did commit suicide, but by cutting her wrists, and had nothing obviously to do with her inability to wait out his jail time.
Oprah had even called Larry King to defend Frey and the book when this exposé of Frey's misrepresentation came to the world's attention.
Oprah had a live show revisiting this issue on Thursday and her sense of betrayal was obvious. She said she was embarrassed and disappointed. She said she was wrong, that she regretted defending the book, and allowing her judgement to be clouded by a multitude of messages of people who were inspired by the book to the point where the "underlying message of redemption" in the book to overshadow the truth.
Several journalists were guests on the show:
Oprah: Richard Cohen is a Washington Post columnist who wrote in the case of James Frey: "The liar whose memoir turns out to have a good deal of fiction alongside fact." [Richard Cohen also] said, "Oprah is not only wrong but deluded." And I was impressed with that. I was impressed with that because I thought sometimes criticism can be very helpful. So thank you very much. You were right. I was wrong. What do you want to say?
Richard Cohen: I would say to the publishing industry, you guys have got to cut this out. You're not little shops anymore with two or three people working with quills. You're part of large corporations. Hire somebody for $25,000, $30,000 a year as a fact checker. A fact checker would have found out in a half an hour that some of this book didn't work because the book doesn't pass the smell test. … When it doesn't pass the smell test, you give it to a fact checker. Work it out. Somebody could have done what The Smoking Gun did. They could have done it. Publishers have to do it from here on end. There is a difference between truth and fiction. We find this out all the time. Now we're finding it out again. This was a betrayal of his readers. It was a betrayal of you.
Wow. A betrayal. And isn't that how so many of us felt when we discovered that the WTS had lied to us? Had misrepresented secular works in its publications to support untenable doctrine? How many of us had been prepared to die, or allow our children to die, or our spouse to die, or spend time in jail, or endured hardship in our lives, only to find out that it was all based on a plethora of LIES. Sure, they called it New Light™ and wrapped it up in a nice pretty little bow to make it sound like it was all right, but when you boil it down to the core of the matter, New Light™ is code for "we told a lie, and here's another lie to cover up the previous one."
Oprah: Why do you think it was a betrayal of his readers?
Richard Cohen: Because they were told this actually happened. They were told this is true. I know nothing about addiction. Very little about addiction. I'm only addicted to bagels and that's it. But you talked to people about this, people who know about addiction, and they said the first step is truth. The first step is self-accountability. Coming to terms.
When has the WTS ever been self-accountable? When have they ever come to terms with the incredible human toll that has occurred as a result of their lies and their flawed policies? Obviously they have never 'come to terms' with their failed predictions, they have never been honest about dates being wrong, interpretations being wrong, and have never valued honesty and truth above the image they wish to present as being God's Chosen People™ and the control they wield over their followers. If they did value honesty and truth, the term New Light™ would never have entered the vocabulary of Jehovah's Witnesses. If they did value honesty and truth, there would never have been the need to expose their lies, because they would have had self-accountability and would have done that themselves. The Quotes website would never have needed to be created, because the WTS would have been totally transparent about its history, its failed predictions, and it would never have needed to rely on misrepresentation of scholarly works in order to support its teachings.
Oprah: Roy Peter Clark is a senior scholar and professor at the Poynter Institute. It's a school for journalists. So whose responsibility is it, do you think, to check the facts in a book?
Dr. Clark: I think there needs to be, most important, truth in advertising. When James writes, "Remember the truth. It's all that matters." That's such a powerful, powerful statement in addiction, in recovery, in journalism, in race relations, and personal relations, that I think the important thing that you're doing today is taking that pendulum which says that "memoir is truthful except for the parts that are lies" and you're reestablishing and you're challenging publishers to label what's going on in the book. And that, I think, is what we should do.Joel SteinTime magazine staff writer
"It's wrong and immoral to pass off a piece of fiction as a memoir, and I wouldn't do it.
"You know, I felt like he was a liar and a weasel. But the more I thought about it, I still loved the book. When I found out a lot of it had been made up, it didn't really change how I felt about the text. But it certainly changed how I felt about the author.
"I think people can sense when the detailed truth isn't true and the bigger truth is true. It doesn't excuse what he did. It's still wrong if someone lied to you. You resent them."
Why, do you suppose, the WTS doesn't "get it" that it is NORMAL to feel resentment and betrayal when someone learns that something they held dear, something they were willing to put their life, their spouse's life, their children's lives on the line for, something that they endured hardships for, something they had made personal sacrifices for, was based on a lie?
Maureen DowdNew York Times columnist
"James Frey very clearly lied to promote his book and I don't think that should get the Oprah seal of approval.
"It's just very disappointing that the publishing house doesn't care. They're just counting their money. And readers don't care. It's gone to the top of the bestseller list. But somebody has to stand up for truth. This is not a close call."
The WTS doesn't care. They're just counting their money. And JWs don't care. Somebody has to stand up for truth. This is not a close call.
"I read this quote in The New York Times from Michiko Kakutani, who said it best, I think," says Oprah. "She says, 'This is not about truth in labeling or the misrepresentation of one author. … It is a case about how much value contemporary culture places on the very idea of truth.' And I believe that the truth matters."
I think all of us, every single one of us, can say with certainty that we also believe that the truth matters. And that is why we keep the light that exposes the lies and misrepresentations of the WTS shining brightly.