An amazing story about a Pulitzer-prize winning story that wasn't a true story

Janet Cooke (Google image search)Had a little riff-raff yesterday over the use of some names in the story about Zac Adair. Since what he and his wife do is officially considered therapy, it's illegal to reveal identities of anyone they help. Long story short, there was a lot of miscommunication between him, me, and my editor, and two kids' first names were used. I mistakenly thought Zac was cool with that; he wasn't. Fortunately, it's all taken care of and the names are gone and won't appear in the print issue. So that's good. 

It's always stressful for me, though, making life stressful for others. (Hence the How Not To Lose Things Like Jobs post from a couple days ago.)

The major issue wasn't that we wanted to out those kids. I would have been happy just saying "a girl" and "a boy" -- which is how I think it's been changed, now. But anonymous references like that are looked upon with much trepidation in journalism, and for great reasons.

In talking with my editor about when and when not to use anonymous sources, she shared this:

Any time you deal with anonymous sources or names you run the chance of having some major problems. That’s why we very rarely ever do that. The other reason is, like I told you, it proves to the readers (as much as it can) that we are giving them accurate information and that our sources are taking responsibility for their words and actions.

One of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever seen in a newspaper was by a woman who supposedly spent time with a family of heroin addicts. She interviewed the entire family including the elementary-school aged kid who had been recently introduced to the drug. It was titled “Jimmy’s World” and was written by Janet Cooke of the Washington Post. She won a Pulitzer for it. Then all this attention started surrounding it, people wanted to find the kid and rescue him, the cops wanted to arrest the mother and her boyfriend. Of course, they had to contact the writer in order to do that because she had only used first names. It was a beautiful, poignant story that, really, is still in my heart. Somewhere out there, what she wrote is probably true for someone.

But it turned out, she’d made the whole thing up. The kid didn’t exist. The parents didn’t exist. The house didn’t exist.

Here’s some background on it: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/day/04_17_2001.html

Here’s the actual story: http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/markport/lit/litjour/spg2002/cooke.htm

The Pulitzer was rescinded.

Even before then using first-names only or no names was taking a chance with ethics. After that, though, I believe it became an even bigger no-no.

Told my editor that while of course I'd never do something like that, I could totally empathize with the temptation. My first love is fiction, because fiction's job is to move you. I'm a writer because I like to move people. There have been times when, while working on a story, I've thought, Man, how amazing would it be if this happened then?

Of course, as a journalist, I can't just make stuff up, and I'd never make up an anonymous source. It's unfortunate that we had that little kerfuffle--what a word, kerffufle--over this story, because Zac's story is a great one. But this whole incident gave me a greater appreciation for journalism, and for the painstaking lengths journalists must go to in order to provide fair, balanced, and at the same time, evocative work in situations like this. There are a lot of journalists out there I already admired, and now, I only respect them more. 

I hate anonymous sources when it comes to negative stories. Seems like I see them all the time in stories about the antiheroes in sports. "A source close to the situation revealed..." or "A teammate who wished not to be identified said..." or "Someone close to someone close to the situation believes..." Hate that stuff. But I never really thought about it being a bad thing to reference anonymous subjects in a positive story.

Ah, life as a young writer. So much to learn.

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