Alan Feuer, a staff writer at The New York Times, has landed himself in hot water after The New York Observer obtained a proof of his upcoming book. The controversy stems from passages in the book -- which is about his time spent in Iraq but is written in the third person -- where Feuer seems to suggest that he played fast and loose with the facts. The Observer story cites a few relevant passages from the book and then follows them up with examples from his actual reporting:
“There was a name in the pad, Haidar something, A-R-something, Aruban or Arubay, it was impossible to tell. He bore down on the notebook and tried to sort it out. Aruban or Arubay—what difference did it make? All right, Mr. Arubay, speak some words to the readers of the Times.”
Later in that passage, Mr. Feuer reproduces notes describing a source’s age as “maybe 50 55,” which becomes a definitive “50” in his news story.
A story including both bits of allegedly fudged copy—“Haidar Arubay” and “Nashet Maktouf, 50”—appeared in The Times on April 14, 2003.
Though the book is presented as an account of "Two Months in the Life of a Reluctant Reporter," the narrator is not named Alan Feuer. It is simply "T.R." -- "this reporter." The Observer contacted the Times for comment about whether Feuer did, in fact, make things up in his real reporting. Here are the passages where Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis responds:
Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis, via e-mail, said that when the proofs of Mr. Feuer’s book came out, metro editor Susan Edgerley “asked him flat out whether he was saying he had faked material in The Times, and whether he ever had. He told her he had not, and we know of no plausible assertion that he has.”
In the front of the book, Mr. Feuer writes that it is “a book of recollected memory, not recorded fact.” According to Ms. Mathis, the paper concluded that “T.R.” is an unreliable narrator, but Mr. Feuer is a reliable reporter.
“In the book itself, Feuer acknowledges that he has taken liberties with his reminiscences,” Ms. Mathis wrote. “We very much believe that is the case.”
Not to be outdone, Gawker delved into Lexis Nexis to see if Feuer's real reporting has ever caused the Times to issue a correction. Gawker claims to have found at least 38 corrections issued for Feuer's stories.
