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

I still love this place, but some of the analogies here have really pushed the envelope.

Nothing described in that opening makes him look any worse, in any degree, than what we already know him to be: a mass murderer.

Those arguing against it, your problem is in the details. And that's my point. The details are painting a plausible picture, but they neither diminish nor enhance what we know he has done: killed a bunch of people.

If you write "Kevin Harvick raped a monkey," you have connected somebody to a disgusting act -- well, for most of us here -- that he absolutely did not do.

The only way your comparison works is if you stick to the absolute, black and white here. Otherwise, it's really comparing apples to mailboxes.

I can respect the abolutists on this; I just don't agree with them.

 

"They are almost human, just a bit hairier," Harvick told himself outside the cage at the zoo. "Could this be so wrong?"

 

Usually stories like this have a disclaimer that states the story is based on interviews with people familiar with the subject. Gary Smith writes this way a lot. I've read a number of memoirs that have vivid details included that neither the author, nor their sources, could be certain of.

 

And yet, I said it would be something he normally did after victories. So really, the analogy stands. I did it for shock value, but the point remains it was written as a well-known fact that he would have acknowledged.

 

With a disclaimer run before the memoir, typically, and this style used throughout.

Again - this is the ONLY ONLY ONLY section of the story written like this. The rest of it he seems to have cold.

The only disclaimer they run is that some names have been changed to protect the innocent.

"Esquire" ran a Heath Ledger story like this. They rightfully called it fiction.

Again, he's not just making a broad conjecture about what might have happened. He's giving details about where the guy sat on the bed, what order he grabbed each gun, looked in the mirror, smoked a cig, etc., etc.

The people standing up for it really seem to be stretching just to be contrarian, IMO. OK, maybe that's not fighting fair for me to say. But after initially wondering what I might be missing, I know believe strongly about this.

 

the story wasnt that good which is why it was probably buried on page 114 of a small edition.

 

I, too, am surprised at the debate. Magazine, schmagazine. It is passed off, as a whole, as a factual telling of just what happened that day. If the rest of the story is dead-on, it just doesn't make sense to assume the front end of the day and throw it up as the lede. Is it dramatic? Sure. I like it. But I know it isn't what happened. It might have. But has been stated repeatedly, it probably didn't. Dude might have slept in his car that night and packed his guns up the day before.

Active voice is great and, if it fits, use it every time. But here it isn't possible. Can he write - as he did - that the room "is cluttered with soap, moisturizer, deodorant. Cotton balls. Empty cans of Red Bull."? Yes. I'm sure that can be fact checked. Can he write that he "walks to the door, then has to go back to check (the mirror) again, just to make sure."? No. He can't. Because he can't know.

Throw in a likely. Throw in a probably. Does it ring as crisp? No. Is it accurate that way? Yes.

Just start the damn thing out "He likely sat on the end of his bed ...", abandon the active voice and get on with what the readers want to know about in the first place.

 

Thought that was interesting as well. Right behind Jenna Jameson, What I've Learned.

 

Plausible don't cut it.

 

As they say in court, "A lie in one is a lie in all."
I read a lede like that, I quit at the graf's last period.

 

We need Jonesy to check in on this...

 

Well, that's a fairly frightening addition to the list of people who really, really disagree with me.