Thursday, July 16, 2009
Oh, but my lead was so good: "Beautiful days aren't the only thing PLNU and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood have in common."
So freshman year I wrote a story about a 16-year-old student who thought he was the next Mister Rogers. I had asked the newsroom if anyone needed a story covered that week, and the news editor handed me the number of a music professor who had him in class and thought it would make a neat story.
Suffice it to say, I found it hard to corroborate everything this kid said, but Gay Talese had just told me that he never crafted an investigative story whose sources he couldn't talk to afterwards, so I checked what sources I could and said what I knew to be true.
I sincerely suspected he was just a little boy trying to fulfill some sort of odd fantasy, but he did have a set at KPBS and the professors and people he worked with obviously thought he was the real thing.
Well, some more important and surely less gullible people than me were sincerely fooled by him. Charging as much as $300 per ticket, this kid was organizing a supposedly celebrity-filled fundraiser gala in Escondido until some reporters finally became suspicious of him. (Check out where Voice of San Diego linked to my article!)
Scam or delusion, I don't know. But one of the most hilarious things I've ever been remotely involved in, yes. Oh yes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Wow, I remember that original article and how you seemed pretty careful to attribute all those claims to Glenn himself, noting the lack of confirmation from the TV station... Given how it wound up, do you regret stopping where you did and just alluding to the inconsistencies, rather than somehow unmasking the hoax?
I don't know if I had the ability to determine the extent of his falsity at the time. He was lined up to begin filming, so in that respect he was telling the truth. He was also a student at the school, and there were multiple adults I talked to who were fully convinced of what he was saying, so I said what I knew to be true at the time. I'm not an investigative journalist. I'm not even a journalist (and far from an aspiring one). I was mostly concerned with being fair to everyone involved, and not making any accusations that could be unwarranted.
Post a Comment