Lede in Esquire: Pushing the bounds of "nonfiction"?

I take it you didn't read the whole story. The whole point of the story is that this wasn't a case of someone just inexplicably snapping. Kid had a long history of mental and social problems.

 

Total fiction, unless he was there or a camera was rolling.

I don't like it one bit.

 

In my experience many editors today will take out just such qualifiers. I think what gives this license, or could, is that a) if there is sufficient reporting to believe that this likely happened, based on all the info the writer knows know? (and is each item of detail is backed by something i.e, if the guy was always obsessive compulsive about three, and b) the standard is a bit different when a subject is dead. If you can't deduce then you really can't ever animate a person who is dead, because you can't ask them to confirm a thing, and even an eyewitness is just a perspective.

Important, I think, to ask this question though and to ask it when you are writing.

 

I was struck by some of the same things when reading it, but there likely isn't much there that would really be in question.

He probably knows he smoked a last cigarette because the cigarette butt would be in an ashtray and would be noted in a police report. He would have checked the clip 3 times because his OCD was out of control and he did everything three times.

I don't have a problem with it. And to suggest it's worse than Albom is beyond silly if you're read the article, which is excellent.

 

On another thread Jones said they fact-checked like crazy on the re-creations he did, and I believe him. But I don't know how they'd account for this one.

I've been reading the mag for 35 years now, probably this month is the anniversary. Bought some back issues at a used-book store to read on the beach during a vacation with my family the summer after my freshman year in high school and I don't think I've missed an issue since.

They almost lost me around '97 or '98, whenever it was that David Granger became editor. I've never met him, he could be a great guy and a genius for all I know. They toned down some of the initial changes that I thought were tacky and I've made my peace with the fact that in almost every issue there are going to be at least a couple things I'll just hate and that I think ought to be beneath them.

The stuff that really bugs the crap out of me, though, is when I get an image of some hipper-than-thou editors deciding, "Rules? This is Esquire! We make the fucking rules!" Like on this piece. I'm a reader and I think we deserve a bit more respect from Esquire's editors than this.

 

Hey, those of you who subscribe to Esquire ... when do you get it in the mail? I haven't seen this latest (August) issue yet ...

 

I got mine last Thursday, I think.

 

I've had mine for a few days -- think it came Tuesday or Wednesday. Still haven't read the NIU story, so I'll reserve comment on the main topic here.

 

That wasn't my point.
I was (attempting) suggesting the writer, while conducting thorough interviews, simply had no way of knowing how the guy acted before the rampage. I get the journey through mental illness. I was just suggesting - despite the amount of interviews - for all we know the rampage could have been set off by a Matlock repeat. I doubt that's the case, but no one knows for sure because no one else was in the room.

 

Silly? Really?
The facts surrounding or leading up to the rampage of man with serious mental issues is less important than a man who writes a column from a sporting event that he didn't attend?
As a result of the rampage, several people died and the family of the man responsible has to live with that.
What Albom died, while a number of sports journalists were aching with pain and shaking their fists in anger, I'm pretty sure no one died as a result. So no, (IMO) It's not silly. In fact, it's so, so, much more important to truthful here. Sports v. Life?
I'm sorry but you don't get to make up, assume or take liberal literay device with what the killer did before he left his room. Not when it comes to shit like this.

 

Well, I didn't have much to hang my hat on here except to post that "I don't agree with those who don't find the lead acceptable" but at least I have it now.

ETNIOR: Nobody died in the Albom story, that's true -- and exactly nobody else died in the recreation of the scene in this lead.

Assuming our journalistic ethics differ on this piece, answer this: Who else was hurt by this lead? Answer: Nobody.

Mitch's transgression was worse BECAUSE it was so innocuous, not despite it. There was no gravity to what he was writing. He wrote a column as if it happened yesterday, and what he said happened yesterday didn't. He said two buddies sat together at a basketball game, and they didn't. The problem is it was lazy and EASILY worked around ("planned to sit together" would have solved a lot of problems, but they took a chance that the prewritten column would fit nicely into the preprinted Sunday section and all would be fine, and they were wrong).

I'm comfortable that by every piece of information the writer had on hand, he assembled a completely plausible lead that yes, pushed the envelope, but no, wasn't going to mislead any intelligent reader into believing it was anything but a recreation.

I think we do that sometime in these ethical discussions: Take the average reader out of the equation.

So bottom line:

Would an average reader been led to believe, by Albom's column, that those guys sat together at that basketball game on a Saturday, with the story appearing in Sunday's paper: Of course.

Would the average Esquire reader really think that the author here was sitting in that room when the killer was prepping for his rampage? Of course not.

Was Tom Wolfe in all those scenes he wrote about? Of course not, again.

Very reasonable people don't agree with me on this, which is fine. But I say you can't judge the writing in a vacuum. Reasonable reader expectations and experience have to be taken into account in judging whether something is appropriate.

 

Me, I'm shocked by this.

He apparently made stuff up and wrote it as if it happened.

There's no shades of gray with this as far as I'm concerned.

That ain't journalism.