Is Joe McGinniss a jerk? Sarah Palin certainly thinks so: she didn’t like it when McGinniss rented the Wasilla house next door to hers while researching and writing The Rogue, his recent book about Palin. But my friend Matt Harwood argues at Truthout that McGinniss really isn’t the sort of person that anybody would want for a neighbor.
Earlier this year, you may recall, a draft manuscript of a tell-all penned by former Palin intimate Frank Bailey was leaked to the press. Harwood alleges that it was McGinniss who deliberately leaked Bailey’s manuscript to the media so as to harm his chances of obtaining a publisher; in Harwood’s telling, McGinniss was afraid that the publication of Bailey’s book might negatively affect the sales of his own. Here’s an e-mail that McGinniss sent to an unnamed recipient in February:
“[Co-author Jeanne Devon’s] proposal could - though it probably won’t, which I can say now that I’ve read the full manuscript attached to the proposal - lead to a book that would come out at the same time as mine and detract from the attention paid to mine by diluting it, thereby hurting my sales, thereby taking money out of my pocket in order that she might have more to put into hers,” wrote McGinniss.
Harwood’s got a lot of e-mails like this from McGinniss in his piece, which is worth a read. It’s not clear that McGinniss is guilty of anything other than disingenuity. But, at the very least, Harwood makes a compelling case that Sarah Palin’s not the only obnoxious person to have ever lived in Wasilla.
Wasn't Frank Bailey's book dropped by Revel Marketing the year before?
I wonder why that was?
It seems like McGinniss's alleged leaking of the manuscript helped them find a publisher.
#1 Posted by bumpitqueen, CJR on Fri 9 Sep 2011 at 07:44 PM
Bumpitqueen or should I say Joe McGinniss you ethical trainwreck.
#2 Posted by JoeMcGinnissIsAHack, CJR on Sun 11 Sep 2011 at 12:24 AM
As the lead writer in Blind Allegiance, I'll address the Revel Marketing story first. When they dropped the project, there was a one page proposal for a book that they claimed they would write in three months. That's as far as their efforts went.
My cowriters and I worked and researched for over two years this manuscript. When we were done, we had five publishers "working up numbers", ready to bid on this book. After McGinniss leaked the manuscript, in whole, and even sent an email suggesting to one blogger he should feel free to use the material in any way he saw fit (despite copyright laws), every one of the publishers dropped out by the following Monday, citing the leaks. Howard Books came back only after I convinced them we could salvage enough new material to make this somewhat of a success, if not the blockbuster everyone believed it would be pre-leak. When the book came out, we lost dozens of marketing opportunities--the same ones that McGinniss is now bragging he has at his disposal.
For anyone to suggest, as McGinniss has so brazenly done, that he helped this book get published is not only ludicrous, but goes beyond idiotic.
Why would we writers of Blind Allegiance cooperate with Matt in his story while McGinniss threatened to sue? It's not because we were the ones with anything to hide.
Ken Morris
www.kennethmorris.net
#3 Posted by Ken Morris, CJR on Wed 14 Sep 2011 at 11:01 PM
Gotta say I'm no Palin fan, but I'm not crazy about the Miami Herald running the Glen Rice thing even though Glen Rice wasn't available for comment. Just because it's 'out there' doesn't mean you run it without doing any actual reporting.
#4 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Thu 15 Sep 2011 at 03:35 AM