Journalists are, by their very nature, con artists of a sort. When an interviewer nods in acceptance as his or her subject blathers on and on, more ridiculously by the moment, then reports the entire conversation in all its embarrassing detail, that is a small betrayal. When Lloyd Grove profiled Sharon Stone for Vanity Fair, he didn’t have to mention the actress’s opinion that the Welshman Dylan Thomas is her favorite “Irish” writer, or describe in detail how (in his presence) she flattered and bullied a hapless retailer into giving her needlepoint runners at half price. But he’s a journalist, and that’s the sort of thing journalists do.
When journalist Janet Cooke–after some 11 hours of relentless questioning by Washington Post editors–admitted that her Pulitzer Prize-winning story “Jimmy’s World” was a work of fiction, not fact, she had admitted to the biggest journalistic crime of all: she had betrayed her editors–and her readers–in order to advance her career.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
By purely pecuniary standards, Cooke’s “confession” has been a tremendous success. Her story attracted media attention long before the story had even hit the stands, with Cooke appearing on Nightline and Today in early May to explain and apologize for her wrongs. Less than a week later, after a fierce bidding war among a number of movie studios, TriStar Pictures offered $1.6 million for the movie rights to the GQ article–with Cooke herself (a “consultant” on the project) sharing more than half the purse. (The two have been paid $750,000 up front; the rest will come if and when the film gets made.)
“I was fascinated by the relationship between a young editorial puppy and a temptress finding her way in a really sexy world,” TriStar production chief Stacey Snider told the Los Angeles Times–the puppy being Sager, presumably, and the temptress being you-know-who. “Cooke’s character is fascinating, charming, tragic–all that good stuff.”
Americans love a repentant sinner, after all, and Cooke seems to have managed the correct mixture of contrition and pathos. As Sager himself notes, the media have in recent years taken on a kind of “Father Confessor” role. “People today know well that the surest route back to grace is a massive public appeal,” Sager writes. “You transgress; you confess; you are forgiven.”
Yet there is something undeniably unsettling about Sager’s account. Partly, the problem is that Cooke’s “confession” is less than thorough–she hasn’t admitted anything that wasn’t already known, and (judging from the number of issues Sager has had to sidestep in the story itself) she seems unwilling to clear the air about certain other incidents of possible truth-stretching.
Sager, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, compared Cooke’s plight to that of Hugh Grant, who after his own transgression “winked and bowed, said three Hail Marys, hit three stations of the media cross, and was back on the set.” Of course, the two situations aren’t even remotely comparable. For one thing, Grant didn’t betray the public at large–he betrayed one particular woman. And his penchant for commercial sex had no bearing on his performance as an actor–whereas Cooke’s lies do bear on her credibility as a journalist.
