Losing Faith

My faith in The New Yorker magazine is gone.
 
I love The New Yorker – the articles as well as the cartoons. In fact, it’s the only magazine I get in the mail – thanks to a friend who gave me a gift subscription. I look forward to it arriving every week.
 
So I was excited a few weeks ago when I got a call from Jane Mayer, who was writing a profile about Art Pope that runs this week.
 
We talked a long time, and she asked good questions. I looked forward to reading her piece. I jumped on it as soon as it was available online.
 
Like most people, the first thing I did was look for my name. There it was, near the end, in the penultimate paragraph. And there I was, identified as “the former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party.”
 
Readers, I have been and done many things in my life that I’m not proud of. But one thing I cannot be accused of is being former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party. I’ve never had any job with the party. I’ve never even been a precinct chair.
 
It gets worse. A couple of weeks after my interview with Ms. Mayer, I got a call from one of The New Yorker’s legendary fact-checkers. The fact-checker said the article identified me as former ED of the party. Was that right?
 
No, I informed her: I deny the allegation and defy the allegator.
 
But there it is, in black and white in The New Yorker.
 
My reputation is now ruined. How can I hold up my head in public when I have been publicly identified as former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party?  How can I go on? How, for that matter, can I ever trust The New Yorker again?
 
Oh, I’ll read it. I’ll even laugh at the cartoons. But I’ll never, never get over this.
 
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Gary Pearce

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Losing Faith

My faith in The New Yorker magazine is gone.
 
I love The New Yorker – the articles as well as the cartoons. In fact, it’s the only magazine I get in the mail – thanks to a friend who gave me a gift subscription. I look forward to it arriving every week.
 
So I was excited a few weeks ago when I got a call from Jane Mayer, who was writing a profile about Art Pope that runs this week.
 
We talked a long time, and she asked good questions. I looked forward to reading her piece. I jumped on it as soon as it was available online.
 
Like most people, the first thing I did was look for my name. There it was, near the end, in the penultimate paragraph. And there I was, identified as “the former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party.”
 
Readers, I have been and done many things in my life that I’m not proud of. But one thing I cannot be accused of is being former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party. I’ve never had any job with the party. I’ve never even been a precinct chair.
 
It gets worse. A couple of weeks after my interview with Ms. Mayer, I got a call from one of The New Yorker’s legendary fact-checkers. The fact-checker said the article identified me as former ED of the party. Was that right?
 
No, I informed her: I deny the allegation and defy the allegator.
 
But there it is, in black and white in The New Yorker.
 
My reputation is now ruined. How can I hold up my head in public when I have been publicly identified as former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party?  How can I go on? How, for that matter, can I ever trust The New Yorker again?
 
Oh, I’ll read it. I’ll even laugh at the cartoons. But I’ll never, never get over this.
 
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Gary Pearce

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