Les Jones

Media Behaving Badly > The Great Monkeyfishing Hoax

http://www.slate.com/id/2159189/

James Taranto, among others, called the story a hoax.

At first, Slate stood by parts of the story. In an apology, then-editor Michael Kinsley wrote:

http://www.slate.com/id/110230/

After the New York Times investigated further and found more problems, Kinsley backed off specific elements of the story - such as admitting that the reporter and his companion had never actually hooked any monkeys - but still stood his ground on key points of the original story, claiming that the reporter did visit the island, and that a fisherman confirmed that he had taken clients monkeyfishing.

http://www.slate.com/id/110932/

The Slate article described a "monkeyfishing" excursion in the Florida Keys. This involved taking a boat to an island occupied by monkeys and casting for them like fish, using fruit for bait. Despite suggestions by others that the entire episode was fiction, this excursion did take place. In fact the Times story, by Alex Kuczynski, quotes the fisherman who took Forman and his friend on the trip. <A TARGET="_new" HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/35a7/3/0/%2a/i%3B80137839%3B0-0%3B1%3B17929090%3B4307-300/250%3B20116258/20134152/1%3B%3B%7Eaopt%3D2/0/2700a3/0%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp%3a%2f%2fwww.nyfa.com?utm_id=20060215078a&utm_source=waspostros&utm_medium=banner&utm_term=none&utm_content=300x250&utm_campaign=washpostros"><IMG SRC="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/advertisers/nyfa/021607/300x250.gif" BORDER=0></A>

Contrary to allegations that no such practice ever existed, Kuczynski also confirms that monkeyfishing occurred on other occasions before the one Forman describes. She quotes the fisherman saying he had gone on similar excursions once or "maybe twice." The friend who accompanied Forman--whose statements to Slate and as cited by Kuczynski have been consistent and unchallenged--told Slate another fisherman also had taken such an excursion. Is it therefore inaccurate to call monkeyfishing "a sport [that] evolved among the local fishermen"? Most of the Times article is devoted to questioning this description, and we're not disposed to argue. It was, at the very least, a purposely misleading exaggeration.

This February, some six years after publication of the original monkeyfishing story, the story's author contacted Slate to confess that he had fabricated the entire piece and in fact had never been on the island in question.

http://www.slate.com/id/2159189/

The scandal rested there until this week, when Forman telephoned me. Student journalists writing a story about the incident had contacted Forman, and this had prompted him to call me and confess that the story was a complete lie. He never even visited the island.

In a note to me, Forman apologized for betraying Slate's trust and for taking so long to come clean.

I, in turn, apologize to Slate readers for publishing the story. Although Forman still stands by the two other pieces he wrote for the magazine, there is plenty of reason not to believe him.

One of those pieces is called "A Beer and a Shot - Probing the synergy between guns and liquor." For my readers who like guns, try not to laugh, and note that this piece, like the fictional monkeyfishing piece, involves a homemade silencer.