Oh, Malcolm Gladwell!

How could you?

It was with great personal satisfaction that I rolled my eyes and clicked away from Jack Shafer's recent anti-Gladwell dissertation on Slate. Mr. Gladwell's great crime? He'd told a funny story in public, and then, allowed the funny story to be taped and broadcast on "This American Life." Like virtually every funny story since the dawn of time, this particular tale wandered some distance from the literal, historical truth.

Yes, I said it. Sometimes, in order to be funny, people will fudge the truth. Worse, many writers are unable to resist the temptation to be funny. Sweet Jehosaphat on toast! Can you imagine? A person so addicted to being amusing that they do not report their experiences with the cut and dried precision of an AP News brief! Someone call Dr. Drew.

In his better moments, Mr. Shafer is a impish avenging angel, swooping down on weasel words and wringing the breath from ill-researched trend stories. For these acts of righteous journalistic vengeance, I have nothing but gratitude. But for whatever reason, Mr. Shafer is drawn to the Personal Yarn as if it were the journalistic killing fields, site of all that is horrifying and unethical in the world. (Note, for example, that Stephen Glass is not known for his hilarious monologues.) But he is, inexorably, drawn back to this topic every few months. Not too long ago, he went off on David Sedaris, and, as I say, last week he took aim at Mr. Gladwell.

Why this seems such a slippery slope is beyond me. Yes, we want Mr. Gladwell to be scrupulously honest in his reporting, but I have no difficulty believing he's capable of such effort and still, say, crack a joke now and then. One would sooner confuse the veracity of a Sedaris article with a Susan Orlean feature.

Ah, well. That was my position, anyway. And then Portfolio ran an article about Mr. Gladwell's spotty fact-checking. Then, a few hours later, they pulled the post.

Thank you very fucking much, Portfolio. Now I feel like a boob for writing off Mr. Shafer as a journalistic bluenose. And, for bonus points, I feel certain we can expect weeks, if not months, of additional posts on this subject from my favorite journalistic bluenose.