Note: It's the same Nick Sylvester who writes for Pfork

Village Voice suspends editor over fabrication
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The Village Voice suspended one of its editors after he
admitted fabricating material for this week’s cover story, a look at “The
Secret Society of Pickup Artists.”
The weekly alternative newspaper published an editor’s note on its Web site
Wednesday night announcing the suspension of senior associate editor Nick
Sylvester.
In an article about the effect that Neil Strauss’s book, “The Game,” has had
on the singles scene, Sylvester closed with a description of a night in
which he and three television writers from Los Angeles tested strategies for
picking up women at a Manhattan bar.
“That scene,” the Voice wrote, “never happened.”
It attached a note from Sylvester, in which he said the account was “a
composite of specific anecdotes” shared by two of the alleged participants.
One of the people supposedly present, the comedy writer Steve Lookner, was
not involved at all, Sylvester acknowledged.
“I deeply regret this misinformation, and I apologize to Lookner for his
distress, which I certainly never intended,” Sylvester wrote.
Voice Managing Editor Doug Simmons said the paper was still reviewing the
accuracy of the rest of the story.
Sylvester, who also writes for the online music magazine Pitchfork, joined
the Voice staff in 2005.
Attempts to reach Sylvester were not immediately successful. He did not
return an e-mail message sent to him at Pitchfork Media.
Sylvester mostly wrote music reviews for the Voice. His few full-length
feature articles included several interviews with characters who told
somewhat fantastical stories.
In an August story about cheating on college campuses, Sylvester described
interviewing a student who spent $500,000 to have a multiplication table
tattooed over his entire body; a Harvard Medical School graduate who cheated
with Morse code; a Boston College junior named Simeon Criz who cheated using
a specially designed deck of playing cards; and a Manhattan doctor named
Noam Feldstein who delivers “a hundred newborn babies each day.”
Boston College said it had no record of a student named Simeon Criz. The
board that licenses doctors in New York said it had no record of a physician
named Noam Feldstein.
Founded in 1955, the Voice covers arts, entertainment and news with an
irreverent bent that often stretches the conventions that govern most
big-city newspapers. Its staffers have won three Pulitzer Prizes.
———

Yeah, I was going to start a thread about this earlier...but thought the ILM thread was probably enough: http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=6762323#unread (check for Whiney's posts)

I guess a lot of people are pretty happy about this, as he's definitely pissed a lot of people off throughout the past few years. I, for one, never had any problems with the guy, though the crap he pulled in the Voice piece is pretty lame/weak/poseur/evs. I mean, it's one thing to create composite characters and settings in a song or a book, but come on dude...

The stuff further down in the story was even worse; the doctor delivering 100 babies a day and some dude spending $500K to get a multiplication table tattoed on his body so he could cheat in college. WTF?

I know the editors here would want some kind of verification that these people actuallt existed before they even thought about printing crap like that. Outrageous.

He should claim that it was SO Outrageous, that he thought everyone knew he was kidding.

Same with that Washingtonienne chick..who I totally thought, and still think was bullshitting.

He should have to change Norman Mailer's diapers as punishment

"By DAVID B. CARUSO"

The AP article is a scam!

That's the thing though - I think as long as anything happened to someone, somewhere or in theory, it makes it into his ideas about a piece or idea. I think that's just sad and pathetic.

I laughed:

I'm not familiar enough with his ouevre, as it were, to comment.

One would think that some of the stuff mentioned would raise a few eyebrows...

Then again, when I was an editor, I 'forgot' to run an article about our girls soccer team wining state. Then again, I was high.

Reading people defending him - "oh, he's a post-satirist, he doesn't operate under the same rules" - infuriates me as a journalist. And it's not just him, it's anyone who brazenly cobbles half-truths, "composites" and remembrances into stories that are presented as fact.

Credibility and honesty are the only currency I and other reporters have, and fuckoffs like this undermine that every time shit like this happens. And it bugs me even more when editors and higher-ups get dragged into the shitstorm that the reporters swirled up. Yes, the reporter might have been in over his head, but it's his job to say "Guys, I need a little help here." instead of making stuf up to look like he's better than he is.

I'm gonna go sulk about my profession now and contemplate the few shreads of respectability we have left.

I got your back big time, C. There's not much you can effectively substitute for credibility.

In a business like this, or any, really, all you got is your reputation.

It could be worse. At least they didn't go Glenn Frey and change their name to the "Partytown Press."

It's really the case with us. We're in something of an inferior position because we're relying on people to give us information willingly (save for documentation and stuff that you witness) and so they have to be able to trust that you'll get what they tell you right and won't falsely present them or what they say in a manner that will damage their career or reputation.

If that trust erodes, so does their willingness to give you tips, share information and otheriwse do the things that lead to the best stories possible getting into the paper/magazine/whatever. Pretty soon you're not effective at your job anymore and malign the entire profession with errors that are particularly egregious.

Yeah, that part has always bothered me, too. I understand that editors help shape the work environment and should be able to defend any piece that goes out under their watch...but there's a point where "fact checking" ends and "trust in the reporter" begins.