Mickey has the goods on the latest piece of half-baked crusaderism from the New York Times – this time abandoning the usual rules of journalism to go after those evil drug companies – yes, the same evil drug companies that have saved the lives of countless people like me. But he’s also on the case of Michael Wolff, the toast of Manhattan’s media elite. Wolff has defended the New York Times, and has a post-modern approach to what he calls
the line between absolute fact and the instinctual sense of how far over the line of absolute fact it’s safe to go, which is more and more the real tradecraft. Nor is it really possible to explain that smartness in a soft-news world involves a certain quality of plasticity.
What does he mean? In common language, he means that it’s ok to make stuff up if you’re as smart and brilliant as Michael Wolff is. I’m glad Wolff has now made his own journalistic ethic transparent. But I knew it already. He wrote a profile of me for New York Magazine over a year ago. I’m used to sloppy reporting, attitude-driven prose, and complete contempt for the truth in magazine journalism, but even I was shocked by the piece. It was riddled with errors; he grotesquely distorted a quote for his own purposes (he later conceded he had in an email); he had clearly read none of my books, while giving the impression he had; and when challenged privately about all this, he responded that the column was about how he feels, not about the reality. That same column – complete fantasy – was then given a National Magazine Award! No wonder Wolff defends fabulists. He is one. And that’s why today’s New York journalism hails him.
The Dish 