60 Minutes: Greg Mortenson Fabricated Parts of Books

I'm currently reading Nothing to Envy and the writer, a LA Times reporter, says upfront that because the book is about North Korea she has no way of verifying any of the details or facts in the book outside of interviews.

It was kind of refreshing.

And the book is a pretty good read as well.

 

Up until recently, because of the unspoken contract between author and publisher, it was assumed that a ms sent in as non-fiction was exactly that. It would never have crossed the minds of publishers like Knopf, Farrar Straus, S&S, Doubleday etc, that an author would have fabricated events. It was, to use a quaint expression, "a gentlemanly business"

From a practical point of view, the cost associated with fact-checking a 200,000 word manuscript would be prohibitive.

 

Mortenson's tales have resulted in a pretty nice career for him:

 

When I wrote a book, the publisher's lawyers did a read through it for potential libel triggers. Anything that was unflattering, they wanted the source (I didn't have source notes at the end - just a bibliography/sources cited page). They also checked the spelling of names. That was the extent, I think, of the fact-checking, though mine was a work of journalism/history and not a memoir/first-person book. I assume that my experience was fairly typical.

 

60 Minutes profile is on now.

 

Devastating report. Mortenson is a fool for not getting out ahead of this story.

He should have called a press conference and admitted all. He should have answered every single question and begged people to forgive him.

Millions juts saw him refuse to speak with Steve Kroft. Drudge is now linking to the story and his institute's website is overwhelmed and won't load.

 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

So it is true, CBS News can move mountains to get the story when they want it.

Why, if they only pursued real news with half the amount of vigor things could be remarkably different.

 

Jones on why the Greg Mortensons of the world should worry all of you:

http://sonofboldventure.blogspot.com/2011/04/three-cups-of-bullshit.html

 

That they can get a guy like Krakauer to go all-in on Mortensen is the most damning.

 

Read both of his books and it's not surprising information. The publisher and the writer who co-authored his first book should be getting hammered as well. Mortenson is a snake, no doubt, but this discredits journalism because it shows that, once again, editors can't do their freaking job and ensure that the story is spot on. Or maybe they did and didn't give a shit since they wanted everyone to profit off his stories.

 

Seems to me journalism exposed this fraud.