nick sylvester = maker upper

"More to the point: How does anyone, in this day and age, think they can get away with it? As CBS News learned during Memogate, the Internet has connected us to the point where critics can seize on a misstep nearly instantaneously. That's not to say we live in an era free of journalistic sin – far from it. But technological innovation has made it pretty damn hard to get away with an outright fabrication, which is a pretty good reason not to do it, if ethics ain't enough to sway you."

The technological innovation of the voice fact-checking after the article has already come out? Yeah, damn those internets.

certainly the stakes were raised with this being a cover story (tho we do not know if it was assigned as such), but this is pretty much a standard nick sylvester piece. it has a very narrative structure, it's full of asides and the quotes are very rich. of course this was cooked -- that's his style!

it is certainly within a publication's rights to refuse that sort of writing -- witness wolfe and the like thriving at new york and esquire in the '60s while the new yorker thumbed its nose at them for shoddy journalism. it's a style of writing with a long history: swift, dickens, london, thompson and countless more. in fact, up until the '20s, that *was* journalism. the point was the moral, not the facts.

of course this changed and this has largely been for the good (i say largely because politically this leads to lots of he said she said pieces where the existence of cold hard facts is ignored -- it's a twist on journalism 101 that benefits the deceiver). but there are still writers who work around this, most notably -- and ironically -- strauss. i could see glass as a possible parallel here except that i can't imagine nick ever really honestly claiming his pieces as fact. he writes classic ledes and all of that with a wink and a nudge to make sure we're in on the joke.

and so in this instance i think the issue came from: a) someone complaining (as was absolutely their right to do) and b) a new editor who was unfamiliar with how nick writes. i agree that there are journalistic standards -- i strongly advocate them -- but nick is not a journalist! he's a features writer, plain and simple. and so from that miscommunication (or at least that's what i see it to be) between the editor seeing nick as a journo and nick seeing himself as nick, we've reached this hubbub that i'm finding really hard to take.

somehow, even tho we're a society so immune and oblivious to fact, we are now demanding total transparency in the strangest places. sure, politicians and companies can lie, but not movie stars or writers that we never read. there's this false standard that has arisen from i dunno the fuck where, and through a confluence of bad decisions and timing (nick is not absolved of guilt here, tho i do not really blame him for being the writer that he is) nick has gotten caught up in this. needless to say, i'm pulling for him.

Jams, I have to be blunt -- this completely undercuts what I think is a good and spirited defense, because it puts the onus on us that somehow we are all individually at fault for this failing which you envision as endemic. I find that insulting, if not patronizing, and I hope I don't have to spell out why.

well, those issues are a part of the story, so you shouldn't shy from them. and you would be doing your subject a disservice if you discussed these reservations in the piece without confronting them with them and getting their side of the story. but there are ways of doing this, as Whiney intinmated, without making you look like an arrogant, uninformed douche.

a) someone complaining (as was absolutely their right to do)

If you agree it is their right, are you also defending Nick's practice in this particular instance? I don't find it an impossible balance to maintain, but it strikes me as a questionable one.

this isn't particularly interesting to the reader or integral to the narrative or artistically brilliantly rendered. it's not like some editor was unable to grasp the "style" that made it ok for him to write this. it's not like we're arguing about the bats rising out of the desert in "fear and loathing in las vegas", we're arguing about somebody writing "this guy told me x in y" and the guy saying "i was never in y and i didn't say x".

and no i am not defending nick's practice of attributing false quotes and actions to real people. to fictional people -- or composites -- i'm all for it.

Rationalize it all you want, but feature writers still have an obligation to tell the truth. Their styles may be more creative than the sweaty stuffed shirts documenting city council meetings, but they are held to the same ethical standards.

The Village Voice shouldn't be required to bend to suit Nick Sylvester.

i think nick is a great critic and i feel for what he's going through as an acquaintance but i really resent the oversympathetic liberal mindset that forgives bad journalism by nibbling away at the circumstantial and anecdotal evidence. sure, maybe this isn't the kind of writing he's done before, and yes, perhaps he was rushed into the situation but, know what? he's also a fucking bright kid who shouldn't need three years under bob woodward to know that rule one of feature writing is "don't make shit up". someone upthread said that if he wasn't ready for this kind of gig he shouldn't have taken it on, and that really couldn't be more true. being responsible for yourself = the ultimate careerism.

i don't buy for a second that this was anybody's responsibility but nick's, and although i hope there's more to the story, if it's as simple as how it's being presented by the press so far, i'm really disappointed.
that said, i'm pulling for him and i'm hoping he comes out of this for the better.

xposts

di Milano ?

Which is a wordy, drawn-out way of saying: hstencil OTM. If it's a parody, what of?

As Dolly, the blogger quoted by Nick in the article who had met real life PUAs while dating in NYC, says in HER letter to the article (I'm paraphrasing) it was an unfair portrayal of the men and that she actually enjoys her time with them and that teaching men how to be successful with women WORKS (because it also worked on her even though she KNEW about PUAs and how it's done).

NOT to mention that there is total speculation about whether or not any of the other women involved even saw what he supposedly reported or even how the students behaved. If one part is false, who knows if he embellished and/or falsified the rest.

Nick goes down!

[self-promotional bullshit redacted]

uh, no:

http://m-w.org/dictionary/parody

It's a parody of the kind of snarky, irritating yet decadently thrilling writing that fills the pages of New York Magazine, the NY Observer, and, increasingly, the front pages of the New Yorker. And it's done to a T. What elevates this to satire -- the moral that Yance refers to, the moral that makes it all okay -- is what I guess I'm missing. In both pieces.

i didn't catch that at all. didn't seem "edgy" enough for that (as in, the faux-edginess [whatever the fuck that means] that, say, new york traffics in), nor nearly as sanctimonious (deservedly or not) as most voice covers. it just read as kinda, well, there for me, if that makes sense. like "there's some dudes that do this but some girls know what it is, blah blah" and not much else.

of course this was cooked -- that's his style!

...means nothing if someone totally unfamiliar with him or his style reads the piece.

Nope. I don't get it.

A parody is "a satirical or humorous imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing." The great parodies I've read expressed points that couldn't be made through straight writing, only by outlandishly exaggerated imitation.

If I tell you your shoe's untied, and it isn't, it isn't parody.

(xpost) Tracer Hand OTM.

They're the ones who asked a music feature writer to do a social piece. They're the ones who read what amounts to coverage of guy techniques for pulling pussy and decided to run this as a cover story.

Should this outcome really be so shocking to them?

The Village Voice turned into a sad joke years ago, kind of like NYC on the whole, actually.

Nick's story is a metaphor for the turns the city took in the 90s: Self-important white pedigree man bluffs way through reality. Disempowered liberal outlets unable to stop him, so they instead sign on. Whole thing blows up in their faces.

i love the old "some people" line, because it gets you the interviewer off the hook of being directly confrontational. and it's not really disingenuous, because you as an interviewer don't necessarily share the views you're presenting, you're just acknowledging they exist and getting a response.

but nick is not a journalist! he's a features writer, plain and simple.

this is an odd statement. i know a lot of good features writers who would take exception to it.