Anyone who has worked as an editorial writer in Alabama knows the secret. Get 'em on a bar stool (if they drink) or in a weak moment (if they don't) and they'll spill the beans. They'll admit that being an editorial writer in Alabama is about the easiest job you could hope for. There is never a shortage of great material. Some of their peers in other less Wild-South states might have to write glowing words of praise about the Red Cross or The Boy Scouts on a slow day, but that simply never happens in Alabama. There is always some fool waking up each day, ready and able to provide the state's editorialists with what they need: idiocy. (And yes, I've been on both sides of that journalistic equation.)
In his Birmingham News column today John Archibald talks about how easy it was to write today's offering about the Birmingham School Board candidate who made up his education achievement, claiming a high school education he didn't have...and about the Montgomery Investment Banker who also made stuff up, less clumsily perhaps, but just as surely made up. Two sides of the same tarnished coin.
If only I were a better speller. If only newspapers were hiring. A career would await.
[UPDATE: The perfect ending to the story...via The Birmingham News.]
well, tim, not such a perfect ending.
ReplyDelete"dr." woe.....mack didn't show.
probably being called to washington to lobby for healthcare (or is it health insurance) deform.
he's just what they need.
Interesting entry, Tim!
ReplyDeleteCharles V. Ford, MD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of "Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit," said his scientific interest in deception began with his psychiatric and medical patients diagnosed as compulsive liars, and later discovered how little scientific information was available on the topic. He indicates that at least a third of job applicants embellish their resumes, and that those whom do wish to be at the center of attention.
I had just recently read about CEOs and other top execs who falsified info on their resumes. Interesting reading, to be certain. The firms' names read like veritable who's who of American enterprise:
• Perma Fix, COO Larry McNamara - falsely claimed college degree, won't be fired
• Bausch & Lomb, CEO Ronald Zarrella – falsely claimed an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Admissions Dean Marilee Jones - falsely claimed to be a “scientist with degrees in biology from Rennselaar Polytechnic Institute and the Albany Medical College,” and to have her doctorate
• RadioShack, CEO Dave Edmondson – falsely claimed to have a psychology degree from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California (the school doesn’t offer a psychology program), along with a degree in theology from the same unaccredited college
• MCG Capital, Chairman Bryan J. Mitchell – falsely claimed that he graduated Syracuse University
• Lotus Corporation (IBM), CEO Jeff Papows – falsified military record, education & family origin (he was a lieutenant not a captain, no Pepperdine Ph.D., and contrary to his orphan claim, his parents are alive and well)
• Notre Dame Football Coach (for 5 days) George O’Leary – falsely claimed a New York University master’s degree in education, to have played football, and earned three letters doing so
• Veritas, CFO Kenneth E. Lonchar - falsified Stanford MBA
• Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis - claimed false Vietnam war record
• former Oregon congressman Wes Cooley - falsely claimed he fought in Korean War
• Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Janet Cooke - completely fabricated her Vassar & Sorbonne education, journalism award at another paper, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning story