Art and Culture # 49: A Fact Checker for All Seasons
-For the Uncensored!
The way Art is made is often not what most people can happen. Art in most cases can be edited, but for journalism, there are disconcerting issues blasted across social media. When “a lie is being pushed at the behest of the establishment” nothing is ever true.[i] If the consequences of Art is meant to lie, who would check the facts surrounding a story. James Frey, author of a Million Little Pieces, was skyrocketing to the best seller list as a nonfiction book. It was a sensational best seller, and even Oprah had him on her show upon its release. It was released on April 15h, 2003, and was a nest selling book in 2003 and in 2006. Detailing the life of Frey, his drug addicted life, turned out to be not true.[ii]
Where were the fact checkers with that story? It made James Frey so much money and the dishonesty in publishing is widely known. John Steinbeck said, “The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business”[iii] He was right. What fact checkers failed to do with James Frey is a symptom of a time long forgotten. It was sold previously as a fiction book, but nobody wanted it. I have heard this done before. I have seen rejection letters, and I know what the publishers think.
Publishing is about not about creativity or the culture surrounding creativity. It’s also about money. But did a fact checker stop to think about what James Frey was writing before they allowed him to sign the contract.
If the test with fact checkers is to not embarrass themselves, why do the media care so much about telling you what to think? It’s because they are paid to lie. They are paid to not care about your children, your mother, father, and putting your family in danger.
The blame on James Frey came after the publication and led to his embarrassment by the media for “lying about his life” which if we’re going to be fair, lying is part of the publishing industry. They knew the destruction of the author was more important, because it made more sense. A liar exposed, because it makes good headlines. People are prone to negativity. They need to feel that sense of deception being made against them. They need a narrative to spin, but it doesn’t actually mean publishers lie intentionally. Unless it was in a fiction book. Then it’s truly made up. So, fiction aside, telling the truth in a nonfiction book is essential. It’s a wise decision if you want to produce a nonfiction work. It’s not about being nice, but exposing the dark secrets that you don’t want people to know.
People on social media don’t even think about this as much because we’re telling everyone what we think anyway, so that’s kind of old news when it comes to the indication of telling the truth. People lie on social media all the time. They can’t tell you that they are having a shitty day. Some just outright blurt there opinions out there, and I am guilty of this too, but I make no apologies over what I have said online. At all.
The problem is not blaming James Frey for the world of a fake drug addict, but it also brings up a very special movie, called the Night Listener, and written by Andrew Maupin. A writer who is conned over the phone of a child writing his best-selling memoir of having cancer after being raped by his mother and her friends. What the film depicts is that this can mean people can believe someone who they have never met. Upon confronting the nanny, she’s blind, but is lying, and runs away when confronted. And fact checkers in the film didn’t know this. So, people by default want to believe things they don’t see until the con is proved correct.
With the media, it’s almost the same thing, but the failure in many lies, including Russiagate, and whatever the lies that people want to believe in order to find out that people will believe anything they want in order to make people believe in what they think. It’s easier with social media. Everyone has come across a fake profile that feigns interest but essentially wants money from you. It’s not hard to tell the signs. Usually horrible writing, and asking for money. Offering naked pictures.
What is damaging to the world of journalism is that journalists are not ready to tell the truth on themselves. They aren’t trying to find out what actually happens. It’s sad that we have to come to this perspective in life when you open a newspaper and you have to question what the writer is trying to do. If the world surrounding us wants to lie to us, why even bother going outside?
This is not only about James Frey. But about cult media personalities that don’t pretend to care about where they find their sources. Or even try to question the narrative being handed out. If the destruction of truth was never there, then why should we care if James Grey lied about his life?
We should be more mad at the mainstream media than James Frey, because at least he implicated himself. But the industry itself prides no more than truth than allowed to be said. If journalism actually mattered, they would have done their job a long time ago. To clearly make up stories, and it’s not related to Babylon Bee or The Onion, is a sad day indeed.
What John Stewart admitted in his Joe Rogan interview, is that he left the Daily Show and “didn’t want to be holding the bag”[iv] because the media was going to change its game plan and become unfathomable. If John Stewart was the host of a Comedy Central news channel, it was going to change all around.
There’s a problem when John Stewart, Jimmy Dore, and Joe Rogan, have far more likable qualities than any source on CNN, MSNBC, and the popularity of these three always pissed off the mainstream media. When Joe Rogan is smeared for taking Ivermectin as “horse de-wormer” he claimed, “Am I gonna have to sue CNN?”[v]
The point is money, everyone. Everyone wants money. Everyone says fiction doesn’t sell, but apparently, it didn’t work that well for James Frey. Ultimately he did manage to bounce back. He’s wrote a series of YA thriller books, “The Calling” with Nils Johnson-Shelton (2014). Many called James Frey’s “The Calling” A Hunger Games rip off, but it seems that Frey was allowed to create a novel and let it be his own. While the dimension of “credibility” is the word that would create a barrier for people to read his books, it doesn’t really matter anymore. I would be angrier about Frey’s work if he had managed to implicate another person’s life. Theirs nothing less tangible than someone replicating Howard Hughes life, but when Frey implicated himself, years later I come to say, “So, what?”
Yes, he lied, but everyone lies to themselves. It makes them feel good. Facts don’t care about feelings. This is true, but the disproportionate attitude toward feelings is what makes us all relatable. If you damn people for their faults and never for the joys you share, you’re not a person and you belong on a space ship. So, fact checkers are good, but in a novel or definitely considering James Frey’s ability to implicate himself, is daring in an age where everyone manages to lie about themselves all the time. It’s the human condition.
Maybe it’s a guilt complex for not being able to publish his book as a fiction novel, but in journalism, the importance of fact checkers remains a dubious job if they don’t manage to do it correctly. Honestly, if the world surrounding us is really based on legitimate fact checkers, does this mean to soberly fact check prove that it’s no better than someone fact checking a cross word puzzle.
If fact checkers aren’t allowed to do what is necessary, there’s no need for facts or fiction, but opinion. But as the saying goes, “Who watches the Watchmen?” from the famous Kennedy speech, now it’s “who’s fact checking the fact checkers?” Because MSNBC, CNN, and liberal news station, and publishers don’t want to do. A VQR article even proclaimed Frey died, which is hilarious, as it recounts him having a Native American wife. [vi] The reliability of this article, by Steve Almond, is almost sketchy at best. So, this could be a friend of Frey’s that wrote the VQR article, to help make people think about Frey again. It doesn’t hurt an author when they die, but it doesn’t mean that it’s true. But then self-fulfilling prophecies are always best when it can stir up controversy.
But this proves that nobody is ever really punished unless they make money off of it first. Nobody likes a con artist until they make money.
.
[ii] If the world had Twitter back in the 90’s, Grey would have never made it anyway, and assuming that fact checkers really do care, would have found Grey out in two seconds. But he was found out
[iii]https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/129492-the-profession-of-book-writing-makes-horse-racing-seem-like.
.
.
[vi]https://www.vqronline.org/fiction/controversial-author-and-cultural-icon-found-dead.
-Louis Bruno is the author of more than 19 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline, Apocalypse Soldier, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Our Freedom Book https://www.ourfreedombook.com/thereallouistbruno17. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His next series, City of Sand is out now:https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/louis-bruno/city-of-sand/hardcover/product-rke9jz.html?page=1&pageSize=4. Also, if you can’t subscribe so that you can get members only content, please be sure to share the articles, as well. Every little bit helps in the war against Big Tech. Thanks for reading.