Comments on: After fabricating Bob Dylan quotes, Jonah Lehrer resigns from the New Yorker

By: Pam Horovitz

Pam Horovitz — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 18:56:55 +0000

Interesting that there was no apology to Bob Dylan himself.

By: Robin Miller

Robin Miller — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 17:30:40 +0000

It gets irritating. I’m a drudge, neither famous nor prosperous after 30+ years of professional writing. Why do these hotshot pubs hire these hotshot liars? I write better than most of the liars, but that apparently doesn’t count. Going to the right New York parties and pretending to like the right people… ah, *that’s* the ticket.

Whatever. I have some articles to write. Not high-paid ones, but the information and quotes in them will be accurate.

By: Nancy Gruver

Nancy Gruver — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:34:23 +0000

And a word to the wise – the vast majority of non-fiction books, including those published by major presses, are never fact-checked by the publisher. That’s how he could get away with made-up quotes in a book that he probably couldn’t have gotten away with in a New Yorker piece. This has always astonished me, given that books are usually given more credence for being factual and well-researched than magazine articles.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:47:08 +0000

Yahoo should hire him :)

By: Andre Friedmann

Andre Friedmann — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:57:18 +0000

For you wet-behind-the-ears young ‘uns, way back in the 1960s Dylan attracted rabid analysis from people now dead or, like me, *old*. Ain’t no way to fabricate Dylan quotes without getting tagged by some current or future geezer.

By: RayBeckerman

RayBeckerman — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:08:31 +0000

There aren’t enough good Bob Dylan quotes, without making some up?

By: Frank Reed

Frank Reed — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:19:47 +0000

This is just a direct result of our obsession with success at any cost.

Habitual lying is a symptom of a much deeper sickness and it’s a sickness our world feeds without considering the consequence.

I hope he takes some time away from pursuing whatever it is he felt he needed to chase and take a look inside and decide what is truly important.

By: Frank Reed

Frank Reed — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:15:10 +0000

Mr. Lehrer needs to take some time off for some introspection.

We have created a culture of doing whatever it takes to become ‘successful’. In the meantime, morals and ethics have been put in the trunk as we speed down the road.

At what cost?

By: Laura Hazard Owen

Laura Hazard Owen — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:14:03 +0000

Good question, David. Moynihan says in his piece that he’s “something of the Dylan obsessive—piles of live bootlegs, outtakes, books,” so I think that was his motivation to check it out.

By: David Thomas

David Thomas — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:04:04 +0000

Wow, a zinger. Down goes another very young shooting star in publishing. Here’s an interesting questions, though: This took a helluva legwork to zero in on the Leher’s achilles heel — a lot of time and effort to take down this guy. What was Moynihan’s motivation? Also, the editorial department at HMH needs to evaluate this — trust and publishing deadlines are no longer acceptable excuses following Frey, the young adult novel plagiarist, and Stephen Glass (New Republic).