The problem to be investigated was claims that were the foundational selling points for James Frey’s book A Million Little Pieces. Oprah Winfrey endorsed Frey’s book, which went on to sell over a million copies in 2005 and became a number-one seller. The Smoking Gun Website facilitated an investigation, which discovered Frey’s claims to be botched. Jennings (2009) posed four key questions, which were associated with James Frey’s case study I will elaborate on those questions in this paper.
The first question posed was, “what did you learn about the quality of truth from the Frey experience” (Jennings, 2009, p. 70)? The quality of truth from the Frey experience is something that can be summed up as subjective information. While my aboriginal convictions were to say Frey lied or committed fraud, I paused really to think about what transpired. To understand this issue you have to question if Frey was motivated to lie or if Random House (the publishing company) motivated him to flavor his original convictions with exaggerated stories to sell books. On one hand, Frey was liable because he allowed the quality of his work (the truth) to be altered. Comparatively, Random House should have investigated his story before releasing the book. Sometimes the truth is something that is buried or camouflaged within half-truths and partial information. For example, many years ago I took a training class on giving presentations to large audiences. The first step of briefing large an audience was to determine the demographic that you are lecturing for. In short, you would not brief senior management the same way you would brief technical employees. I was asked to brief a vice president of engineering. Coming from a background in elec...
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... were embellished. However, as I previously stated similar types of unethical behavior takes place in corporate America all the time. Moreover, those parties do not receive the same types of punishments are lawsuits that Frey acquired. Nevertheless, after personally investigating this topic on the internet some people acknowledge and accept that some of the claims made by Frey or false but they still say they were moved and inspired by the book. After reading the case study, it makes me wonder if Frey could have circumvented all the negative media attention simply by entering his book as fiction opposed to non-fiction.
Works Cited
Jennings, M. (2009). Resolving ethical dilemmas. In J. Calhon, R. Dewey, S. Silverstein, & L. Bofinger (Eds.), Business ethics: Case studies and selected readings (6th ed., pp. 36-70). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
58. According to the passage, O’Brien believes that storytelling conveys a stronger meaning than any real account. It amplifies the message one is trying to assert by engaging an audience through vivid, but fictional detail. O’Brien uses false events to represent greater emotional truths, which is best displayed through fictional accounts. This is a prevalent and recurring ideal throughout the
Being such a narrative, when I was reading about the details of Kate’s attacks I was actually scared. It gave a sense of spookiness to the book that I hoped for. I remember visiting the city of Salem, and the same chills I had walking through the town was relived while reading the book. However one difference about this book compared to the historical teachings of Salem was that in Kate’s trail it was less of a he said she said event and more on the cold hard facts. In GodBeer testimony, he examines much of what Jonathan Selleck notes on how to determine a witch is guilty because he knew how serious of an offense it truly was. I sometimes found myself wondering if this was a fictional story because of how elaborate it was or however, when he used experts from documents such as the petition for Elizabeth Clawson. The last two chapters is much about the trial process than I expected, which helped me to understand this book as a narrative with much historical
In the fictional story the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of a woman tormented by the townspeople for committing adultery. With fiction the author can paint a story in any way to deliver the right emotion to the audience. However, nonfiction must stay to the actual facts of the story. Typically, nonfiction stories contain eye-opening details that wouldn’t be believable if written as fiction. For example, the story of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan were 2 olympic ice skating athletes trying to win gold. Tonya Harding had someone try to break Nancy Kerrigan’s legs so that she couldn’t compete. It is unbelievable as nonfiction, but as fiction it would seem too far out there to
To start off with, we need to look for any obvious factors associated with the documentation that could affect the accuracy of the document. In the case of 'The Long Shadow of Little Rock' one of these obvious factors would be that this documentation was written by the victim. Now this factor is a double edged sword, Elizabeth could either be brutally honest about her plight (in the hope that somebody would listen), or she could exaggerate what actually happened in an attempt to shock the reader and in turn gain attention and support in the form of a higher authority.
Almost twenty years later, contemplating the contemporary American publishing scene, I feel a Bealean rage coming on (and with it a vague longing for one of his fits).While three percent of the American population in 1976 would have been a little over six million readers, recent surveys suggest that the consistent buyers of books in this country now total no more than half that number, and may even be as few as one million.[1]
The truth to any war does not lie in the depths of storytelling but rather it’s embedded in every person involved. According to O’Brien, “A true war story does not depend on that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (pg. 80). Truths of any war story in my own opinion cannot be fully conveyed or explained through the use of words. Any and all war stories provide specific or certain facts about war but each of them do not and cannot allow the audience to fully grasp the tru...
One example is John Proctor, who tried to protect his wife, he told the truth but was still convicted of lying and was hung. Another example is Rebecca Nurse, she kept her dignity and was very religious. She was accused of witchcraft but swore her innocence on the name of god, but she still got killed in the end. The last example is Giles Corey, he was old and he told the truth in court, but he didn’t deny or accept the witchcraft incident, and he was able to give his son his land but he was eventually stoned. The truth will set you free does not apply in this book for many reasons, and it doesn’t always apply in real
The authors do eventually (pg. 205) acknowledge that some may see the book as trying to enrage the public just to sell books. In fact, Ron Levy, P...
O’Brien explicitly asserts that “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (139). O’Brien, as demonstrated here, is not interested in the physical reality of what happens, rather he is writing from an emotional standpoint. He also directly states “I feel guilty sometimes. Forty-three years old and I’m still writing war stories” (61). Writing war stories and guilt are clearly related things in his mind and he writes in order to cope with this guilt. This entire work, every little story, every random detail, and every character is a direct reflection of O’Brien working through his guilt in the only way he knows how:
One of the later entries in the book called “Good form”, helps alleviate the suspicion of dishonesty in the stories by bluntly telling the reader that all the other entries are a mix of both fact and fiction. O’Brien feels the need to make up parts of his stories due to the fact that he wants the reader to experience emotions as opposed to mental visuals. He describes these emotion-laden scenes as “story-truth” due to the fact that they are part story and part truth. The parts that are only for emotio...
Along, with everyone lying this could have caused a completely different outcome of the book if they would have told the truth. The book would have turned to Miss. Narwin not being afraid of just going out in public if Jake Barlow didn't have the dismissal and omission lies. Phillip would still have his friends and track, if he would have not lied about patriotism to the nation. Finally, Dr. Seymour would have a phenomenal teacher in her district if she would have kept Miss. Narwin and cared about the truth. In conclusion, the book would have a contrasting ending is Phillip, Dr. Seymour, and Jake Barlow did not
...The precision or real truthfulness of a story is irrelevant, “a thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer then the truth” (O’Brien 80). In reality, truth isn’t about occurrence, but about imagination and perception, a story can be factual or fictional but its meaning will be the same. Therefore, the lack of precision is what actually provides us with the truth, nothing is accurate and this will always be the case, at times, the truth is so powerful that it cannot simply be put into words as Orwell would like, it can only exist in the intricacy of the human mind.
...ribed happened and were recorded. The element of a man, falsely accused, dying for his beliefs is a crossover into an idea understood by all cultures. Even the way the works are presented, in the form of dialogue, make them stand out to history. Perhaps the first time in history are such deep thoughts written about and discussed in such a way. This also speaks of the times of the philosophers. If the inhabitants of Athens had time to think about such deep thoughts as “What is holiness?” they must have lead lives of ease compared with those of earlier people. These certain thoughts might be precedents in history, just because the Athenians cherished thought, rhetoric, and some had the time and willingness to practice these pursuits. Civilizations that followed the Greeks often imitated them. The Romans based many of their values, rules of citizenship, and even religion on the Greek system. Men and women of the Enlightenment could have read the same dialogues that we read today. Why would anyone continue to read these stories? I believe it is the dialogues discussion of individual verses state and state verses religion. These are the truly enduring issues that we will always face.
War veterans wrote Slaughterhouse-Five and The Things They Carried. Some parts of the book are made for readers to believe and the other parts give realistic examples of war. The authors introduce their plots as truth-based on purpose. In the chapter “Notes”, O’Brien admits: “that part of the story is my own.” (O’Brien 151). In the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut begins with: “All this happened, more or less.” (Vonnegut 1). The authors create a picture for the reader on their past experiences to make their stories real. Even the parts that are fiction are not lies, because the writers have the knowledge to be able to generalize, shorten, and produce events in the book. O’Brien writes: “story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” (O’Brien 172). It seemed as if Vonnegut and O’Brien used fiction to make the story more exciting. They write abo...
Pojman, L. (2002). 6: Utilitarianism. Ethics: discovering right and wrong (pp. 104-113). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.