Dr. V's magical putter

This blog makes the point better than I did.

http://mariadahvanaheadley.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/sinatras-cold-is-contagious-hostile-subjects-vulnerable-sources-the-ethics-of-outing/

An excerpt:

<i>"Hannan goes on to write this article, an expression of his upset that someone has lied to him and not understood his feelings as a story teller, his responsibilities to the reading public. What responsibilities? Which ones? Why is Caleb Hannan the man assigned to out this woman? Why is he the person whose version of the truth matters?

Because he’s a Storyteller. And in the version that’s been sold to nonfiction writing students – and to fiction writers too – if you unearth a good story, man, you have a Giant Responsibility to tell it.

Except, why?

Dr. V is not George W. Bush. Dr. V is also not Ann Coulter.

Dr. V. is not Frank Sinatra, and if Frank Sinatra had been born in a body societally designated Francine? If Gay Talese had discovered this in the course of research into a non-cooperative Sinatra? If Sinatra himself had told Talese that he’d commit suicide if said fact was revealed, and Talese had proceeded to reveal this to Sinatra’s record label, because Story?

I’d be judging Talese as harshly as I judge Hannan.</i>

 

Such contrived bullshit.

 

So, let Hannan sit for an interview. Let him answer the question, "who else did you out her to?"

Hannan, as would any writer, puts himself in he best possible light when telling the story, and he still comes across as a cold hearted person, who abetted a a troubled woman's suicide.

What would an unflattering telling of the tale look like? Unfortunately, Dr. V can't tell her side of the story. She's dead.

(But, at least we got to make fun of the dead woman's emails.)

He went back to her with the information he learned, including her transgendered status. He wanted her to come clean -- about her credentials, and her life story. And, if she didn't want to cooperate, he was prepared to move ahead with the information he had learned -- including that she was born with male genitalia.

That sounds a lot like blackmail to me. And, it went against the very ground rules that had been established when she first agreed to talk to him.

 

The reporter made two mistakes in the reporting process - outing her to the investor and not consulting with an authority on transgendered issues/experience.

Anything more is a stretch of manufactured outrage. It amazes me that so many on a board of journalists are ignoring the facts.

There is no evidence at all that the reporting process or any of her interactions with the reporter contributed to her suicide. None. There is also no evidence that the reporter used the knowledge of her status as some sort of leverage. That is such a ridiculous overreach.

In the process of reporting the story, he discovered the fraud of Dr. V's "Vanderbilt" name, which led to the discovery of her as a transgendered woman. She made the false claims she was a Vanderbilt, along with other lies. If her name was Smith and she never made any claims to a famous family, that might be a different case altogether, but instead she bragged about herself being a Vanderbilt, because that added credibility to her product. At that point, the story of a person selling bunk science and a completely fabricated back story to notable golf pros is newsworthy. It's not on the level of Watergate, but it is newsworthy. You can't tell that story without including that she is transgendered.

Transgendered people don't get a pass from negative press because they're transgendered. If she was concerned with her previous identity being outed, she shouldn't have tied her career to a lie about her own background.

 

You don't know this, so you need to stop putting it out there as fact. First, the trans community has a substantially elevated suicide rate (something I didn't know until today). Presumably not a large portion of that community is running snake oil scams. Second, even had the writer not become aware of Vanderbilt's sex change, Vanderbilt would have been alerted that her creation was about to be blown up.

Yes, it's possible that the threat of being revealed as transgendered triggered the suicide. But that would have been true whether or not the writer actually found out about it. That we cannot rule out "outing" as the exact trigger of the suicide doesn't mean that it was.

 

In some sense though, aren't her claims about the putter completely entwined with her claims about her background? I guess you can say that she changed her name without revealing the gender and saying that none of the facts about her background were true under this other name.

The most interesting part of the story was the belief that the putter worked because of superior technology was so important to its success and when the author didn't have that faith, the putter didn't work as well.

 

I think "abetted" is a lesser verb than "caused". We can't say Hannan caused her death. But, he certainly did elevate the stress and fear she was living with.

We've seen people prosecuted for facebook postings and for youtube videos that in some way contributed to a suicide.

I don't think Hannan should be prosecuted, but I also don't think we should discount the role he played in her deteriorating condition, which ultimately led to her suicide.

 

I love this. When the "Redskins" or "Duck Dynasty" controversies are discussed, I learned that no one else gets to tell someone when they can be offended, or outraged. If a member of the Native American, or Gay community, is offended, that offense is legitimate, and needs to be dealt with appropriately.

But, if the transgendered community, or people who sympathize with them, are offended, it's manufactured. How does that work?

Have people when waiting patiently to pounce on poor Caleb Hannan? Was this article the opportunity everyone had been waiting for?

 

Yes or No.

Did Dr. V/Krol ever break the law in relation to this putter and the investors?

 

The reason it is manufactured is because you have spewed assumptions and conjecture on this thread as a justification for your outrage, instead of basing your opinion on the facts of the situation.

You're further muddying the water by falling back on "OH I CAN'T BE MAD BECAUSE I SUPPORT TRANSGENDERED PEOPLE?"

 

YF, I actually agree with most of your take on this.

But if nothing else, this thread spotlights your snarky disdain for journalists and journalism.

The "chill' Hannan got when he learned the secret? You know it. It's the same "chill" you get when you find something you can pummel journalism with.

 

Her name isn't Krol.

And, there's no way for you to judge the legality of what she did. That would be for a judge and/or jury to decide. Caleb Hannan doesn't get to decide that she's a "law breaker" and then act as judge, jury, and executioner.

We also don't know what kind of statements she may have made -- or not made -- in solicitations to her investors. Let's see the documents.

And, there's no evidence that she "stole" or "bilked" any money. She built a company, and a putter. If her business had taken off, why would we suspect her investor(s) would not have seen a return on their investment?