Last month global headlines announced a tribe from Papua New Guinea would be suing literary magazine The New Yorker for ten million dollars.
Daniel Wemp, the central protagonist of an article “Vengence is Ours” by Pulitzer prize winning science author Jared Diamond, filed a two page complaint in New York’s Supreme Court on April 20 with the support of American media ethics project stinkyjournalism.org.
Wemp and company say Diamond falsely accused him and fellow tribesman Isum Mandigo of “serious criminal activity” and “murder”.
Headed by Rhonda Roland Shearer, Stinky Journalism critically analysed and investigated Diamond’s article and the New Yorker’s fact-checking process, interviewing anthropologists, Papuans from the area in question and a linguist.
Stinky Journalism published a 40, 000 word study of Diamond’s article, concluding the best selling author had invented quotes, misrepresented and misconstrued stories told by Wemp.
I, personally, was horrified. Jared Diamond is an author I had a lot of respect for, you might even say that if I had a science writer hero it would be him. His books Collapse and Guns, Germs and Steel have shaped the way I think about the world.
That he would fabricate a story and abuse his relationships with his source to such a degree is a genuinely unsettling thought, and one that media the world over have clearly avoided, with little coverage following up the original accounts of the court order.
However, the latest news from Science (via the Columbia Journalism Review) suggests that it was Wemp who took Diamond for a ride. Science reports:
Anthropologist Pauline Wiessner of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, a leading expert on tribal warfare in PNG, thinks Diamond was naïve if he accepted Wemp’s stories at face value, because young men in PNG often exaggerate their tribal warfare exploits or make them up entirely. “I could have told him immediately that it was a tall tale, an embellished story. I hear lots of them but don’t publish them because they are not true.”
Having research background on the subject of conflict in Papua and Papua New Guinea myself, I have to admit that it is most likely the truth lies somewhere between. Young men are prone to exaggeration, but journalists looking for a story are also open to suggestion.
Oral history is always blurry and difficult to adapt to the concrete standards of modern journalism. It is more difficult when you’re crossing cultural and linguistic boundaries that lose the “grain of salt disclaimer”.
When Diamond interviewed Wemp a decade had passed. Reality had time to morph into mythology. Wemp’s recall was never going to be exact. In the same vein without audio or video recording Diamond’s notes are similarly questionable.
If Stinky Journalism are right then at the very least Diamond was not careful enough in backing up what Wemp had to say, he didn’t seek alternative sources, and potentially he didn’t do any of his own fact checking.
For a journalist that’s not a good sign, for Pulitzer Prize winning author it’s a nightmare.
2 Comments
I read your post with interest as publisher of StinkyJournalism.org and one of the authors of the 40,000 plus word report referred to above.
To clarify, we have only published a 10,000 word excerpt of the larger report so far.
See http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/latest-journalism-news-updates-149.php. The larger report is forthcoming.
With all due respect to the anthropologist quoted by Science, Pauline Wiessner, I would never “shoot from the hip” and say– without knowing specifics (the man, circumstances, in other words, the facts) and make a definite conclusion and general statement –“I could have told him immediately that it was a tall tale, an embellished story. I hear lots of them but don’t publish them because they are not true.”
Polly works with a known type of unemployed young man in PNG–but this is not Daniel Wemp. He is now in his forties, and was a high functioning administrative assistant and driver for World Wildlife Fund in 2001-2002 when Diamond spoke to him and later when Diamond spoke to him for last time (May 2006), he was a oil field technician at Oil Search Ltd.
Polly’s statement is irresponsible and foolish. We have lots of gang murders in the US. What Polly said was equal to saying, “I study young men in Harlem that brag about killings …therefore I could have told you, in advance of any resaerch or specific knowledge and just by hearing the story (great method) that that XYZ man was exaggerating.
I spoke to an AU scientist who also worked with Wemp for a couple of months during the same time period. He said that Wemp was the best assistant he ever had, and that Daniel gave no reason (told no stories) that would make the scientist not trust or believe him. Now that is factual information and direct testimony–not reckless guessing that–again for a second round–defames an innocent man.
Daniel told Diamond stories and Diamond, just like a fiction writer selected and twisted facts to suit an exciting story–just like “the fact” that Henep Isum was in a wheelchair paralyzed for 11 years from an arrow in the spine shot by assailants that Daniel hired. We found Isum. As the photos prove, it’s all fiction–Isum is hale and hearty, walking around with no wheelchair in sight!
Ask yourself: if Daniel knew, as Diamond adamantly claims, that he was telling stories that would be made public and yet also secretly knew were untrue–why would Daniel use real names when he knew people would find out and also knew this would put his life in danger? He simply wouldn’t.
The more reasonable scenario is that Diamond thought no one would check his facts–that’s why he did literally zero fact checking himself. What adult–let alone award winning scientist– takes what their driver says and just publishes it without checking facts? A fiction writer does not fact check, of course–but a scientist does. So who is the liar? Who is the teller of fiction? Who was selling $25,000 lectures using Daniel Wemp’s names and stories before getting caught and told to cease.
I believe the facts speak for themselves. However, please read our report before you judge–I don’t want you to be like Polly.
Good one TC – I’ve been following this via the Anthro-L webgroup and it is a fascinating glimpse into the world of pop-anthropology and a good illustration that even well-regarded polymaths may get it wrong sometimes. Maybe our own Tim Flannery should watch his back?