[RexBeach]

The man lied...he admitted lying...and he's still profiting from his lies. God, what a travesty.

Oprah? Well, she sure has made a ton of money, but she's as big a bonehead in some ways as is this Frey fellow.

[Madeleine Ward]

Seems like the only ones who get a raw deal out of this are legitimate writers of non-fiction.

[sarasota]

Oprah did the traditional flip-flop based on media and web feedback.

[skaterboy]

We found out she knew before hand there might be lies and she still went ahead so now its CYA time

[Woman on Caroline Street]

Unfortunately in this world, we are constantly barraged by the notion that "facts don't matter". To quote Forrest Gump: "And that's all I have to say about that."

[A Citizen Reporter]

""I left the impression that the truth is not important," she said.

Sure you did, Oprah. You are a democrat, aren't you?

I'm glad I've got another piece of evidence to throw in the face of some of these mind-numbed Oprah addicts. I'm really sick of hearing how wonderful Oprah is.

[bikepacker67]

Is it just me, or is James Frey a bit light in the loafers?

[summer]

I see from today's NYT editorial that Oprah is now back in the good graces of the NYT. But I still believe it was not Oprah who needed to redeem herself, nor the author in this case. The publisher, I am sure, had made a marketing decision about this book. I don't believe for a minute that this publisher was ever deceived; this publisher was greedy and wanted the most money. And, believed semi-truth was a package that would sell more than fiction.

NYT Editorial: On Oprah's Couch

Published: January 27, 2006

No debate about the meaning of memoirs and memory will clear the air around James Frey, the author of "A Million Little Pieces," and his publisher, Nan Talese of Doubleday. But what happened yesterday on Oprah Winfrey's couch came close. In a remarkable moment of television, Ms. Winfrey did what we have so often waited for public figures to do: she admitted openly that she had made a mistake in supporting Mr. Frey. Then she did her best to force him, and Ms. Talese, to admit the extent of his deception and the publisher's failure.

As Mr. Frey, looking suitably confused and miserable, responded to Ms. Winfrey's cross-examination, it became clear that he'd consistently thought of the people in his book as characters and altered the lives of almost every one. It also became clear that the written account of his sufferings had a clarity that his actual memories — as he tried to recreate them under the serenely furious eye of Ms. Winfrey — did not. Now he has a story of true suffering to tell.

Ms. Talese was speaking, in a sense, for all of publishing, and her defense revealed the enormous gap in the editing of nonfiction books. She spoke as a reader might — about the effect the book had on her, and about how true it seemed. She did not sound like an editor who was willing to stand behind the accuracy of a manuscript she had marketed as fact.

One expects the language of soft psychology from Ms. Winfrey. That is what we got, instead, from Ms. Talese. Ms. Winfrey gave the audience, including us, what it was hoping for: a demand to hear the truth.

[steve-b]

"I left the impression that the truth is not important," she said.

The book was fake but accurate.

[KeyLargo]

chicagotribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0601270195jan27,1,190784.column?coll=chi-news-col

Oprah knows good TV, and that's no lie

John Kass

January 27, 2006

Completely Exaggerated News -- Flush with victory after verbally slapping the heck out of a drug addict on her national television program, Oprah! Winfrey will continue her "Stop the Fibbers Tour" next week in New Orleans, where she's scheduled to visit Mayor Ray Nagin and demand he make a proper chocolate shake. Earlier, she confronted Michael Jackson over his decision to wear what looked like a burqa during a visit in the Middle East. "You're wearing a burqa? I feel duped. From now on, I'm not going to let anybody embellish on my show! Even you. I'm mad as hell and I just won't take it anymore!"

Oprah! didn't say any of that. I was just kidding. I made it up, and I'm not even a drug addict memoir writer. I wouldn't want Oprah! to get upset with me. She doesn't even know my name, and let's keep it that way.

The last thing I'd need is for her to ask me on her show so she could kick my butt like she did that lying drug addict on Thursday.

I wouldn't know what's worse: Being asked by a Chicago Outfit boss to come to his house for a late spaghetti dinner and when you get there it's just the two of you and the floor is covered with plastic tarp; or making Oprah! angry and then she asks you on her show.

She's the queen of media, and you can tell this by all the columnists rushing to write how brave she is for inviting that lying drug addict on her show, then beating him up for being a lying drug addict, and praising her for being the brave one.

Isn't that what drug addicts do? Aren't they liars by the nature of their addiction? And when they're humiliated on national TV by someone who defended them only a few days before, they might get nervous and call their "pusher-man" and ask for more drugs.

That might make a good show too.

Still, Oprah!'s the brave one. She's brave. She's brave. There, I said it. I don't mind having mayors or governors upset with me. And I didn't mind teasing First Grandma Barbara Bush for making cracks about how the New Orleans poor were better off in the Astrodome than in poverty back home. But I wouldn't ever be foolish enough to get on Oprah!'s bad side. If she asked me to put on a puffy swashbuckler shirt and a Scottish kilt and dance, I'd have to pull my black socks up and start stretching.

By now most of you know what she did, and how President Bush angered millions of Oprah! fans by daring to hold a news conference during her show, thinking he should talk about nuclear Iran and the troubles with Iraq. And figured he didn't have to release those incriminating photographs of him smiling, his arm around crooked Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, because the country would be too preoccupied, eagerly anticipating a drug addict butt-kicking.

"I think he did it on purpose. Oh, that Bush!" said a woman in the lobby of a stately gothic building on Michigan Avenue. "I wanted to see Oprah beat up that lying addict."

You've got to know the story by now. She put "A Million Little Pieces," the memoir of lying drug addict James Frey, on her Oprah! book club, and it became a best seller. Then it turned out he lied throughout the book. Then Frey showed up on Larry King (another tough interviewer) and Oprah! called in to defend Frey, saying truth didn't matter as much as feeling.

Then she had Frey on her show Thursday, and she kicked his behind. Consider this from a ChicagoTribune.com story written by reporter Patrick T. Reardon:

"It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really feel duped," Winfrey told a startled-looking Frey, who licked his lips often before speaking. "More importantly, I feel you betrayed millions of readers. As I sit here today, I don't know what's true and I don't know what isn't."

According to Reardon, who watched the program (I was foolishly interested in a nuclear Iran), Oprah! appeared close to tears when Frey admitted that Lilly, a character in the book, didn't kill herself by hanging, but slit her wrists.

So Oprah! ripped into Frey some more and he licked his lips some more. That lip-licking detail really got to me. You know when a drug addict licks his lips on Oprah!, he's finished.

Recently, though, Oprah! called up the Larry King program and defended Frey from charges he was a liar. Details, shmeetails, she almost said, according to a transcript.

Oprah!: "Whether or not the car's wheels rolled up on the sidewalk or whether he hit the police officer or didn't hit the police officer is irrelevant to me. What is relevant is that he was a drug addict who spent years in turmoil, from the time he was 10 years old, drinking and tormenting himself and his parents. And, out of that, stepped out of that history to be the man he is today, and to take that message to save other people and allow them to save themselves. That's what's important about this book and his story."

King: "One quick thing, Oprah. So, therefore, you hold him no ill will, have no less regard, and still recommend the book?"

Oprah!: "Yes. Yes."

But now she feels duped. And many of us media people are rushing to her defense as she protects her brand. But we're not duped. Honest.

---

jskass@tribune.com

[backhoe]

"A Million Little Rigoberta Menchus" (Will Liberals Demand TRUTH From OTHER Phony Books?)--John McWhorter does a good job exposing Maya Angelou's BS autobiographies in this article: http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020520&s=mcwhorter052002--her fake book won the 1992 Nobel Peace award and is STILL cited by many liberals in this country as being true...I also find the whole James Frey thing entertaining because it exposes yet again what dumb, credulous saps our "opinion leaders" are...

[SunkenCiv]

Why Won't The Media Touch This Book?
Scoop | 1-21-06 | Mark Crispin Miller
Posted on 01/21/2006 4:40:54 PM PST by toddlintown
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1562476/posts