Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Curious Vanity Fair Article on Stephanie Lazarus, Part VI

Complete Series on Fact Checking Mark Bowden's Article HERE.

Continued from Part V....

Yes T&T readers, there's still more to write about Mark Bowden's Curious Stephanie Lazarus article.

Bowden’s article ran in the July 2012 issue of Vanity Fair.  Late last month, Craig Silverman at Poynter published a detailed story investigating my claims about Bowden’s article.   I am very grateful to Craig for backing up my findings and getting some answers on the record from Vanity Fair.  It was from reading Craig’s article that I first learned the name of Mark Bowden’s editor, Cullen Murphy.   Speaking for Vanity Fair, Mr. Murphy told Poynter, “We’re always grateful to have errors called to our attention . . . We take fact-checking very seriously, and when issues arise, we look into them carefully.”

Some of Vanity Fair’s other quotes seemed odd to me, and raised additional questions I wanted to ask the magazine. A few days after Craig’s story was published, I emailed him for Cullen Murphy’s contact information.  Since Craig was away, I didn’t receive a response from him until October 10th. Craig told me his initial contact at Vanity Fair was Beth Kseniak, the magazine’s Executive Director of Public Relations.  I immediately sent Beth an email, introducing myself and asking her to forward my questions to Mr. Murphy.  I explained to Beth that I wanted to give Vanity Fair plenty of time to respond, and if Mr. Murphy replied by October 15th, I would include his answers in my next post.  Beth wrote me back that she had forwarded my email to Mr. Murphy.

Here is the email I sent to Mr. Murphy on October 10th:

Dear Mr. Murphy,

I’m sorry not to have introduced myself to you sooner.  I only learned your name recently, when I read Craig Silverman’s piece for Poynter.

I was glad to learn that Vanity Fair is always grateful to have errors pointed out, and that you take fact checking very seriously. Now that I know you are Mark Bowden’s editor at Vanity Fair, I wanted to ask you a few questions, and give you the opportunity to comment in my next post. 

When Poynter first contacted you, you told them:

“The central charge made by T&T is that Mark Bowden does not accurately quote the interrogation of Stephanie Lazarus and in one instance even adds his own material. This is false... The author of the T&T post relied on a transcript of the interrogation. Bowden, rather than use some unknown person’s transcript—transcripts are notoriously unreliable—went to the actual videos of the interrogation to confirm his quotations. Further, to make sure the speakers were being identified correctly, the quotations were read back to Detectives Stearns and Jaramillo of the LAPD. When the article was published, Vanity Fair put the videos online to make the source readily available. On review, we confirmed that Bowden’s quotations are indeed accurate and that the transcript is not. (We did find that two sentences in a single quotation in the VF piece had been inadvertently transposed, with no impact on meaning.)”

Poynter verified that the official transcript matched the video perfectly.  You then admitted you were mistaken and apologized for “inadvertently introducing a red herring.”

My questions are below.

1. In what way was your initial statement “inadvertent?” 

2. When did Bowden speak to Detectives Stearns and Jaramillo to verify their quotations? Did Bowden also ask the detectives about their experience interviewing Stephanie?

3. Why did Bowden use some unknown person’s transcript of Stephanie Lazarus’s interview, rather than the official court transcript which Judge Perry made public in November 2010?

4. Have all the quotations in Bowden’s article been checked against the official transcript?

You also told Poynter:

"Having gone back again to compare it’s hard to see a substantive issue. Much verbiage and crosstalk has been cut out for concision and clarity—pretty standard when dealing with a long, rambling, and shaggy interrogation—but the quotations used in Bowden’s text correspond with relevant portions of the video. Some things are hard to make out, and there may be an occasional small variance, but a fair reading would conclude that the quotes track accurately and correctly capture the dynamic of the interrogation. There has been no distortion."

5. The primary focus of Bowden’s piece is Stephanie’s Lazarus’s 2009 interrogation. Can you cite another piece of journalism in Vanity Fair, or any other publication, in which a “long, rambling, and shaggy interrogation” was compressed in this way, without disclosure that it had been?

You also told Poynter:

“We take fact-checking very seriously, and when issues arise we look into them carefully.”

6. How carefully has Vanity Fair looked into Bowden’s article?

7. Did Vanity Fair fact check Bowden’s article before it went to press?

In his article, Craig Silverman said he raised two errors with you. But I noticed Vanity Fair corrected four errors online.

8. How did Vanity Fair decide which errors to correct, and why did Vanity Fair only correct four?

9. Are you aware there are at least five more significant factual errors in Bowden’s article that remain uncorrected?

Thank you very much for your time. I would appreciate it if you could please respond by Wednesday, when I plan to publish. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

On October 15th, I received a reply from Cullen Murphy, in which he requested to respond “privately and off the record.” I wrote Murphy back the same day:

Mr. Murphy,

Thank you for your response. I will honor your request not to publish what you emailed me. However, I am disappointed by your decision not to comment on the record.

To be clear, my sole intent in writing this series has been to keep the public record as accurate as possible, given the very serious circumstances of Sherri Rasmussen’s murder. I appreciate the background you provided, but it doesn’t acknowledge the scope of the problems with Bowden’s article, the factual errors that remain uncorrected, or your recent statements to Poynter. 

I hope you will reconsider, and answer my questions on the record. I think my questions are very reasonable. I will give you and Vanity Fair a few more days to decide. Please respond by Wednesday evening if you would like your perspective in the post.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

Mr. Murphy wrote me back two days later:

Dear Ms. Ross,

I'm sorry that you're unable to take up the offer to have a conversation with Mark Bowden, and I've passed that information along to him.

Sincerely,

Cullen Murphy

I responded the same day, October 17th:

Dear Cullen,

I think you may have misunderstood my email. I'm perfectly willing to have a conversation with Mark Bowden about his article, but not off the record.  For transparency's sake, and so there's no confusion about who said what, I prefer to communicate via email.

To confirm, you have forwarded my questions to Bowden?

I know I had offered Vanity Fair until tonight to comment, but in case Bowden only received the questions today, I want to give him and the magazine plenty of time to respond. If you or Bowden answer my questions by Friday, I will include your comments in my next post.

Sincerely,
Betsy A. Ross, Owner
Trials & Tribulations Blog

Later that day, I noticed that Vanity Fair added numerous additional corrections to the online version of Mark Bowden’s article.  Vanity Fair offered no explanation for the timing of these new corrections. I received one more email from Mr. Murphy on Friday, but again, he declined to speak on the record.

I have one additional question for Vanity Fair:

10. Are you aware that one of your recent corrections is factually inaccurate? John Ruetten and Stephanie Lazarus did not take a trip together to Hawaii.  Stephanie traveled to Hawaii with her friend Greg, and John Ruetten independently met them there. Stephanie discusses this in her interview (see pages 28-29 of the official court transcript).

Continued in Part VII.....