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July 30, 2012

Following News of Fabricated Bob Dylan Quotes, Jonah Lehrer Resigns from the New Yorker (and Gets No Love from the Web)...

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It began with this story from earlier today by Tablet:

“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.


Shortly thereafter, Lehrer had resigned from The New Yorker. Lehrer’s statement (via Media Decoder):

“Three weeks ago, I received an email from journalist Michael Moynihan asking about Bob Dylan quotes in my book ‘Imagine,’ ” Mr. Lehrer said in a statement. “The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes. But I told Mr. Moynihan that they were from archival interview footage provided to me by Dylan’s representatives. This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic. When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie, and say things I should not have said.”

“The lies are over now. I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down, especially my editors and readers. I also owe a sincere apology to Mr. Moynihan. I will do my best to correct the record and ensure that my misquotations and mistakes are fixed. I have resigned my position as staff writer at The New Yorker.”

Media Decoder‘s report goes on:

In a statement, the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, said: “This is a terrifically sad situation, but, in the end, what is most important is the integrity of what we publish and what we stand for.”


The guy who busted Lehrer said this in an amazing piece over at Romanesko:

I didn’t have a fiendish plan to bust Jonah Lehrer. I like his work, but I think his actions were unethical at best.


New York Times publishing reporter Julie Bosman:


Slate has coverage of the debacle:

The discovery of the fabricated quotes came only weeks after Lehrer apologized last month for recycling some of his previous work—sometimes nearly verbatim—in his other work, including articles and blog posts.


And over on the chatty part of the Internet, Jonah is not getting a lot of love. Also, if you have a screenshot of Borowitz’s now-deleted tweet on the matter, we’d love to post it.





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