XENOPHONZ opened this issue on Mar 04, 2008 · 57 posts
XENOPHONZ posted Fri, 07 March 2008 at 6:03 PM
Quote - I saw one article. It said it was less than $100,000 thus far. I believe that was the intial advance payment for the book with more to follow.
Yes, I've seen the $100,000 +/- figure bandied about. But the references that I saw were vague, and lacked any details.
How much did James Frey get? $1,000,000? So he's out driving his Porsche -- and he might be able to continue publishing under a pseudonym. Maybe even write another autobiography, with different "embellishments" used to spice up the story the second time around.
In recent years, we've seen several of these types of books published -- "non-fiction" books that later turn out to be pure fiction. We've also seen photoshopped-up images presented as the real thing in the news media; clearly forged documents put out as "proof" of a story; and other fictionalized news accounts presented to us as being real news. And to some people, this type of thing is perfectly OK -- because it supports an "underlying reality" that they'd like to see supported.
It's a good idea to exercise a large measure of discretion in picking & choosing what you (the generic, 2nd-person "you") are going to decide to believe. Chances are that you didn't see the events of the story happen yourself -- so you are getting the information about the story through someone else's filter. Always a good thing to keep in mind.
In spite of many journalist's loud & indignant claims to the contrary: there is no such thing as a purely objective human being.