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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 3/28/2007 2:11:35 PM
Title: "A poitical smear, pure and simple"
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From CHRIS GRAHAM, editor, New Dominion, Waynesboro, VA: You've never heard of me, but I have been writing humor columns for local newspapers in Virginia for 10 years.

And you know what -- from time to time, I write about real-life events in my humor columns. And you know what else -- I have from time to time decided to arrange the details of my stories in such a way as to facilitate their telling. And -- shudder! -- used composite characters to help advance the storytelling.

I don't ever remember saying explicitly that the stories were all true stories - indeed, I have sprinkled in columns written in Dr. Seuss-inspired verse and written to mimic Aesop fables into the overall fabric, such as it is, of my body of work.

That said, it never occurred to me that there could ever be an effort ongoing out there to check out my stories or sources as has been done in the case of David Sedaris.

I can't imagine what would motivate someone - writer or editor - to think that they would need to waste their time and resources on such a venture. As a magazine editor myself, it seems to me to be superfluous at best - and we all know what it is at worst. This, like so much else that we see today, is a political smear, pure and simple.

I can only hope that this doesn't spawn a detailed investigation into the writings of the Dave Berrys and Tony Kornheisers and the rest of the humorist world. Because eventually, in 20 years, they would get to the bottom of the barrel and expose me for whatever worth they could get out of it. [Permalink]

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