Parsing Gladwell’s Story #
A few weeks ago, This American Life (the radio version) played an excellent story (TAL episode/original) that Malcolm Gladwell performed at The Moth. At the end, Ira Glass says that The Moth is a place where “people come to tell both true stories and occasional tall tales.” If you’re like me, after hearing it you desperately wanted to know how much truth was in Gladwell’s story.
Jack Shafer decided to find out, and make himself into something of a grinch along the way:
A storyteller can’t have it both ways, instructing listeners to “look it up” while stretching the yarn beyond the breaking point or claiming that smuggling the “baffling” phrase into Post copy became “literally” an “obsession.” Gladwell’s method, and his decision to let This American Life air his tale, raises … well, new and troubling questions about his attitude toward his audience.