New Yorker writer resigns after faking Bob Dylan quotes

[Garson O'Toole]

Title: Jonah Lehrer Resigns From The New Yorker After Making Up Dylan
Quotes for His Book
Date: July 30, 2012, 1:49 pm
Author: Julie Bosman
Publication: New York Times: Media Decoder blog

http://nyti.ms/MPmuQV

[Begin excerpt]

A publishing industry that is notoriously ill-equipped to root out
fraud. A magazine whose famed fact-checking department is geared
toward print, not the Web. And a lucrative lecture circuit that
rewards snappy, semi-scientific pronouncements, smoothly delivered to
a corporate audience.

All contributed to the rise of Jonah Lehrer, the 31-year-old author,
speaker and staff writer for The New Yorker, who then executed one of
the most bewildering recent journalistic frauds, one that on Monday
cost him his prestigious post at the magazine and his status as one of
the most promising, visible and well-paid writers in the business.

[End excerpt]


Title: Jonah Lehrer’s Deceptions
Subtitle: The celebrated journalist fabricated Bob Dylan quotes in his
new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works
Author: Michael C. Moynihan
Date: July 30, 2012
Publication: Tablet magazine online

http://bit.ly/Phv4C8

[Begin excerpt]

“It’s a hard thing to describe,” Bob Dylan once mused about the
creative process. “It’s just this sense that you got something to
say.”

The sense that one has something to say, some story to relate, is the
stuff that fuels all writers. That Dylan observation can be found in
the first chapter of journalist Jonah Lehrer’s best-selling new book
Imagine: How Creativity Works, an exploration of how neuroscience
explains creative genius. Lehrer has much to say on the matter, from a
meditation on the inventor of the Post-It note to an investigation
into the way Bob Dylan’s mind works, which included the quote above.

The problem, though, is that there is no proof that Dylan ever said this.

[End excerpt]

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