credibility of Jules' reports

[Doug Millison]

Neither your bluster nor your journalistic credentials change the fact that
your reports about Pynchon remain un-corroborated  -- that lack of
corroboration remains a simple editorial fact that has nothing to do with
personalities or experience or anything else.  I have yet to say you're
lying; I say only that you offer reports about Pynchon, largely negative
and defamatory, and you don't back them up with other sources who confirm
those reports; I say as well that the presence or absence of corroborating
information is a standard test applied by editors every day of the week in
considering what to publish and how to characterize its accuracy.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that it's true that Chrissie told you
that Pynchon is an anti-Semite.  Has anybody else ever reported that
Pynchon is an anti-Semite?  Has Pynchon perhaps written anything that could
be construed as anti-Semitic? If and when this corroboration emerges, your
reports about his alleged anti-Semitism will acquire credibility and might
be considered accurate.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that it's true that Chrissie told you
that Pynchon made it a habit to commit adultery with the wives of his
friends, or that "he has a thing for Lolitas". Has anybody else ever
reported these things about Pynchon? Have we heard from any other husbands
or wives or "Lolitas" ? If and when this corroboration emerges, your
reports about his alleged sexual habits will acquire credibility and might
be considered accurate.

Without corroboration, these reports might make it into a newspaper's
gossip columns (and thus, after time, perhaps into history books, reported
as such) but they wouldn't make it into a news story without being marked
as "according to Chrissie" or "according to Jules" and "uncorroborated by
other sources." Sorry about that.

Cordially,
Doug

At 10:48 AM 7/17/97, Jules Siegel wrote:
>This isn't a trial. I'm not lying and Chrissie isn't lying. The statements
>acquire credibility because of my unchallenged credibility as a writer and
>reporter during more than forty years of publication beginning with The New
>York Times when I was still in college.


D O U G  M I L L I S O N ||||||||||| millison at online-journalist.com