Friday, June 1, 2012

Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on STEPHANIE LAZARUS - QUICK LINKS

This is a continuing series on Mark Bowden's July 2012 Vanity Fair article on the Stephanie Lazarus case, "A Case So Cold It Was Blue." Sprocket.

Part I documents the factual errors I found in Mr. Bowden's article.

Part II documents the subjective errors I found in Mr. Bowden's article, including his unsupported description of Lazarus as a "legendary" detective.

Part III lists the people that Mr. Bowden did not interview for his article and questions what interviews he based his article on.

Part IV notes that Vanity Fair has corrected some errors in its online version of Bowden's article, but  has not yet run a print correction.

Part V describes the Poynter story about T&T's series on Mr. Bowden's article. It also notes that Vanity Fair has corrected additional errors online, but still no print correction. Part V also documents Vanity Fair's visits to T&T.

Part VI recounts my emails to Cullen Murphy, Mr. Bowden's editor at Vanity Fair. Mr. Murphy declined to defend Mr. Bowden's article on the record.

Part VII recounts my emails to Mr. Bowden, as well as meeting him in person at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, CA.

Part VIII details my emails to Beth Kseniak, Vanity Fair's Executive Director of Public Relations, and questions for Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair's editor in chief.