FYI: The alternate titles to this posting were “Bob Woodward is Not God” and “Crime Does Pay (around $800,000 as it turns out)”

With the self-outting of the non-Linda Lovelace “Deep Throat”, Bob Woodward’s name has been in the news quite a bit; most of it reflecting on his dogged determination and investigative skills. Another big press topic as late has been mainstream news organizations printing patently false stories due to shabby or corrupt reporting. Rathergate and Jayson Blair come to mind.

Way back in 1980, these two forces came together in one Janet Cooke, a Washington Post reporter. Ms. Cooke investigated and wrote “Jimmy’s World”, a gripping story about an 8–year old heroin addict identified only as “Jimmy.”  The story engendered much sympathy among readers, including Marion Barry, then mayor of Washington DC. He and other city officials organized an all-out police search for the boy which was unsuccessful and led to claims that the story was fraudulent.

In spite of this, the Post not only defended the verity of the story, Managing Editor Bob Woodward nominated the story for the Pulitzer Prize. Cooke was named winner of the prize in April 1981. 

Two days after winning she confessed that there really was no “Jimmy.” She returned the prize and resigned. Her prevarication would have come as no surprise to Post editors had they made an even cursory effort to check her credentials before they hired her.

When she sent her resume to the Post, she claimed she was a Phi Beta Kappa member at Vassar, had a master’s degree in literature, spoke two languages fluently, had experience working in TV, had won a writing award at the Toledo Blade and held a membership in the National Association of Black Journalists.

When Post editor Ben Bradley got her letter, he sent it on to Metro editor Bob Woodward, warning him that he’d better hire her before the New York Times (who later made up for missing out on Ms. Cooke by landing fraudster Jason Blair) or one of the TV networks did. Woodward took the bait and hired her. This widely acclaimed investigative journalist never bothered to check Cooke’s credentials, which like her “Jimmy” story were nothing but fiction.

How contrite was Assistant Managing Editor Mr. Woodward after all of this? Well his quote at the time was  “It would be absurd for me or any other editor to review the authenticity or accuracy of stories that are nominated for prizes.”  (ed. note: huh?)

And what happened to the perpetrator of all of this? Well, Ms. Cooke resigned, moved to France for a number of years before returning in 1996. She was the subject of an interview by Mike Sager, appearing in GQ magazine in June of 1996. Sager’s article was republished in an anthology “Scary Monsters and Super Freaks.” The movie rights for her story were reported to have been purchased for $1.6 million dollars by Columbia Tri-Star Pictures to be divided up between Cooke and Sager. Who says that crime doesn’t pay? Thankfully the film was never produced.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 5th, 2005 at 10:53 am by Insider and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.