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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo153x23.gif" alt="The New York Times" align="left" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0"></a>
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<div class="">June 7, 2013</div>
<h1>How to Monetize Plagiarism</h1>
<h6 class="">By
<span><span>JOE NOCERA</span></span></h6>
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<p>
This is a column about Jonah Lehrer, the 31-year-old disgraced former New Yorker writer who recently — sigh — <a title="The Timess report on the book deal" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/07/business/media/after-his-fall-jonah-lehrer-shops-a-book-on-the-power-of-love.html">landed a contract for a book</a> about love. (Yes, love.) But I want to start by recalling another disgraced former magazine writer: Stephen Glass. </p>
<p>
Glass <a title="A Vanity Fair article" href="http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/archive/1998/09/bissinger199809">was once a Washington wunderkind</a>,
who wrote remarkable articles filled with fabulous scenes and quotes.
It turned out, of course, that many of the scenes and quotes were
figments of Glass’s imagination, and that 42 of his articles, spanning
two-and-a-half years, were either partially or entirely fabricated.
</p>
<p>
The New Republic, his primary employer, fired him. Other magazines that
had published his work announced investigations. And, to complete his
humiliation, a movie was made about how Glass’s fabrications had been
exposed by The New Republic’s editor at the time, Charles Lane. </p>
<p>
In the decade and a half since he was quite properly drummed out of journalism, <a title="A December 2011 column on Glass" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/opinion/nocera-glasss-road-to-redemption.html">Glass has led an exemplary life</a>.
After his disgrace, he vowed to live honorably and honestly, and he
has. He underwent years of psychotherapy to come to terms with what he
did. He asked for forgiveness from those whom he had betrayed. </p>
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And, in 2004, he went to work as a paralegal for a lawyer in Los Angeles
who often represents the homeless. For years, Glass has been trying to
get admitted to the California bar, but the bar association has been
fighting him, saying that he lacks the appropriate character to be a
lawyer. Yet I can’t think of anyone more deserving of a second chance
than Stephen Glass. </p>
<p>
And I can’t think of anyone less deserving of one than Jonah Lehrer. </p>
<p>
It hasn’t even been a year since the first of Lehrer’s journalistic sins was uncovered: He was <a title="An ArtsBeat blog posting" href="http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/lehrer-apologizes-for-recycling-work-while-new-yorker-says-it-wont-happen-again/">routinely recycling previously published work</a>
for a pop science blog he had begun at The New Yorker. (His works seems
consciously modeled on Malcolm Gladwell’s.) Then, Michael Moynihan, <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/107779/jonah-lehrers-deceptions">writing in The Tablet</a>
magazine, dropped a bombshell: In his best-selling book, “Imagine: How
Creativity Works,” Lehrer had made up quotes attributed to Bob Dylan.
Moynihan followed up with examples of good old-fashioned plagiarism in
an earlier Lehrer book. Several people who had been quoted by Lehrer
said that they had never uttered the words he attributed to them.
Inevitably, The New Yorker and Wired, where Lehrer also wrote, cut their
ties with him. At which point Lehrer was left to ... well, what
exactly? </p>
<p>
He certainly didn’t spend his time atoning. After he was exposed, he
issued a statement saying that “the lies are over now,” and that he was
sorry for what he had done. Then he went dark. I tried to reach him
several times; I was intensely interested in why someone with his talent
and future would risk it all by doing things that could so easily be
found out. He never responded. </p>
<p>
In February, <a href="http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2013/2/12/first-public-comments-since-plagiarism-scandal-jonah-lehrer-blames-arrogance-need-for-attention/">he popped up at the Knight Foundation</a> — “the nation’s leading journalism funder” — where he gave <a title="A transcript of the speech" href="http://www.jonahlehrer.com/2013/02/my-apology/">a speech entitled “My Apology.”</a> (Knight paid him $20,000, for which <a href="http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2013/2/13/knight-foundation-regrets-paying-lehrer-speaking-fee/">it later had to apologize</a>
itself.) The speech was anything but an apology. Rather, it was
structured like one of his typical mini-Malcolm articles, with
discursions into a big forensic mistake made by the F.B.I., the research
of a cognitive neuroscientist and the work of a behavior economist. His
central point was that for whatever reason, he couldn’t trust himself
to do the right thing, so he needed a structure — a “standard operating
procedure” — that would force him to do the right thing. As apologies
go, it was both arrogant and pathetic. </p>
<p>
Now comes his book on love, which was revealed earlier this week by
Julie Bosman of The New York Times, who got ahold of his 65-page
proposal. It is more of the same. Although the first seven paragraphs
are about “my fall,” (“I have been found out. I puke into a recycling
bin. And then I start to cry.”), the book is no memoir. Like his
previous books, it is intended to be a work of pop science, an
exploration into why and how we love. His chapter outline includes
catchy phrases intended to move product. His attempts at sincerity come
across as precious and phony. There is not much doubt about what is
really going on here: Instead of atoning for the disgrace he brought on
himself, Lehrer is trying to monetize it. </p>
<p>
Although I was unable to speak to Lehrer, I did reach his editor at Simon & Schuster, <a href="http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/jonathan-karp-to-head-simon-schuster/">Jonathan Karp</a>,
whom I’ve known and respected for years. “He knows he can’t screw up
again,” Karp told me. “I’m not defending what he did, but I think we
ought to have a little compassion here. He’s not a journalist. He’s a
writer, and an unusually talented one. Everyone deserves a second
chance.” </p>
<p>
Actually, they don’t. People who make a big mistake and want a second
chance need to earn it. That’s the difference between Stephen Glass and
Jonah Lehrer. </p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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