Quote- "No one that I know about ever actually did the things which were portrayed in Wag the Dog.  So.......that means that it's just a story."

I never said the movie was based on actual events, but it seemed to match with what you were talking about and is a fictional story about the abuse of spin and altered images produced for the news.

Now isn't it amazing that the original films of the moon landing have been lost(gone). How do you lose some of the most important film recorded documents of all time? Or should we ask why? Some wonder why there are people that don't believe the moon landing was real(it was all fake). Now then why has there never been a picture taken since that time of the moon buggy or the flag or the junk they left there when they say they can supposedly see the texture of an orange from space on earth(and they have sent things to look at the moon but pictures of that were not important in the face of growing scepticism)? It's stuff like that, it feeds the fires of disbelief. Then there is the absence of a thruster blast hole under the moon lander in photos or even dust on the feet when they explained the surface as a soft powdery substance and showed their boot prints in it. I wonder myself sometimes. The rocks could have been gathered from asteroids that impacted our home planet so yes they may have come from outer space. 

See the power of "spin"? It's powerful in the absence of solid touchable proof and always will be. Everything I said is true as far as I know. :)

Oh, I wouldn't deny that "spin" exists......it used to be called by other names.  Like "rhetoric".

The term "spin" is used today as a dismissive label.  It's a handy label that you can call someone else's arguments in order to preemptively discredit them.  It's a convenient verbal device, because it obviates any need to actually deal with whatever the other person has said..........why bother to go to the trouble of answering them..........because everything that they've said is just "spin".  So you can simply dismiss it all as being unworthy of any consideration.  Bang: you win the debate.  And with very little effort.

Using the term "spin" is a quick and easy way to side-step any need for coming up with actual responses to whatever someone else has said.

It sounds like to me that what you're saying is  that "spin" and free speech don't go hand in hand. Without argument and things like rhetoric we end up like a dictatorship or a bunch of corporate cronies who take orders and never talk back or debate that there maybe a better way or that something could be wrong. No sir, I like spin and I defend free speech and with it comes a liar or two along the way sometimes. A price worth paying for freedom of speech if such a thing truly exists anywhere. Otherwise, women still wouldn't be able to vote and blacks would still be sitting on the back of buses or any other number of liberties that were spun in the right direction. Spin, rhetoric or I like to think of it as possibilities is part of a free society and to stand against as to silence it is un-American and anti democratic in nature.

That's my view on "spin".

Uh.....I believe that you are misinterpreting what I've said......just a wee bit. 

I have no objections whatsoever to "free speech".  But I do have objections to the overuse of the term "spin", as I believe that the excessive use of the term has become little more than another form of attempting to win a debate via the quick 'n dirty means of dismissing the validity of anything that someone else might say..........by calling it "spin".

That's not a denial of free speech.  If anything: it's a defense of free speech.

But I fear that we're getting a bit off the rails here -- have a good one. 

This happening with this author is par for the course in a free speech society. I never left the tracks and I'm not calling you un-American or anti democratic either. The truth is you have the right to object to this authors behavior and the NYT's. You have the right to disagree with the political agenda of the NYT. Of course not to mention that you and I acknowledge that the NYT has the same rights we do. Maybe we should be discussing the rules of the Press. Is there a law that says they cannot have a political agenda? Or for that matter the Associated Press? Because I turn on my TV and the same stories are on all the channels told the same way darn near and that can put a big "spin" on. Of course we know all the news is never told. It's too political and it might hurt too much. Most reporters are nothing more than a bunch of corporate cronies protecting their jobs mostly, but hey if they didn't do what they were told they'd just get fired and replaced. That's the reality! That's my "spin" on it. Think it's true? Have a good day!

Take Care,
dogor.

The whole reason the author claimed it as autobiographical is that she knew it wouldn't have sold otherwise.  Would a reputable publisher have purchased it as a reputable, fact based work of anectodal non-fiction?  Doubtful.  Especially when the author is a white, valley girl who freely admits she gathered her information sitting at a Starbucks. 

Would it sell as fiction?  Again, doubtful.  A white female child fostered to a black family in gang territory?  Running drugs for the Bloods, getting a gun for her 14th birthday, buying a burial plot?  Maybe in a bad Lifetime movie but not the plot details a good fiction agent and/or editor is going to buy into.

So, the savy little liar, sits down and tells her fibs to an established author who uses some of them in her work.  This all of sudden gives her credibility.  If anyone questions her, all she has to do is tell them to go talk the author or show them the book.  Then she sticks a disclaimer in her author's notes that she combined characters, changed names, dates, and places.  That should have been a sure fire sign that something wasn't quite on the up and up.