Oprah was had again!!!!

[Danno 1,228]

Another "heart wrenching Story" has been exposed to be a total fraud, I think Oprah pushed this

book and story on two shows without checking the basic facts.... again.

It was not long ago she was hood winked and embarrassed by another shyster pimping books,

James Frey.

IN the world of Oprah, facts are secondary to an emotion filled moment.

Heres the story;

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081229/D95C59C80.html

NEW YORK (AP) - It's the latest story that touched, and betrayed, the world.

"Herman Rosenblat and his wife are the most gentle, loving, beautiful people," literary agent Andrea Hurst said Sunday, anguishing over why she, and so many others, were taken by Rosenblat's story of love born on opposite sides of a barbed-wire fence at a concentration camp.

"I question why I never questioned it. I believed it; it was an incredible, hope-filled story."

On Saturday, Berkley Books canceled Rosenblat's memoir, "Angel at the Fence," after he acknowledged that he and his wife did not meet, as they had said for years, at a sub-camp of Buchenwald, where she allegedly sneaked him apples and bread. The book was supposed to come out in February.

Rosenblat, 79, has been married to the former Roma Radzicky for 50 years, since meeting her on a blind date in New York. In a statement issued Saturday through his agent, he described himself as an advocate of love and tolerance who falsified his past to better spread his message.

"I wanted to bring happiness to people," said Rosenblat, who now lives in the Miami area. "I brought hope to a lot of people. My motivation was to make good in this world."

Rosenblat's believers included not only his agent and his publisher, but Oprah Winfrey, film producers, journalists, family members, school children and strangers online who ignored, or didn't know about, the warnings from scholars and skeptics that his story didn't make sense.

Other Holocaust memoirists have devised greater fantasies. Misha Defonseca, author of "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," pretended she was a Jewish girl who lived with wolves during the war, when she was actually a non-Jew who lived, without wolves, in Belgium.

Historical records prove Rosenblat was indeed at Buchenwald and other camps.

"How sad that he felt he had to embellish a life of surviving the Holocaust and of being married for half a century," said Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum.

The damage is broad. Publishing, the most trusting of industries, has again been burned by a memoir that fact-checking might have prevented. Berkley is an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), which in March pulled Margaret B. Jones'"Love and Consequences" after the author acknowledged she had invented her story of gang life in Los Angeles. Winfrey fell, as she did with James Frey, for a narrative of suffering and redemption better suited for television than for history.

"If I ever take on another memoir, they're going to have to prove everything, every line," Hurst says. "From now on, I may just stick to basic fiction and nonfiction."

The damage is deep. Scholars and fellow survivors fear that Rosenblat's fabrications will only encourage doubts about the Holocaust.

"I am very worried because many of us speak to thousands of students each year," says Sidney Finkel, a longtime friend of Rosenblat's and a fellow survivor. "We go before audiences. We tell them a story and now some people will question what I experienced."

"This was not Holocaust education but miseducation," Ken Waltzer, director of Jewish Studies at Michigan State University, said in a statement.

"Holocaust experience is not heartwarming, it is heart rending. All this shows something about the broad unwillingness in our culture to confront the difficult knowledge of the Holocaust," Waltzer said. "All the more important then to have real memoirs that tell of real experience in the camps."

Among the fooled, at least the partially fooled, was Berenbaum, former director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Berenbaum had been asked to read the manuscript by film producer Harris Salomon, who still plans an adaptation of the book.

Berenbaum's tentative support - "Crazier things have happened," he told The Associated Press last fall - was cited by the publisher as it initially defended the book. Berenbaum now says he saw factual errors, including Rosenblat's description of Theresienstadt, the camp from which he was eventually liberated, but didn't think of challenging the love story.

"There's a limit to what I can verify, because I was not there," he says. "I can verify the general historical narrative, but in my research I rely upon the survivors to present the specifics of their existence with integrity. When they don't, they destroy so much and they ruin so much, and that's terrible."

"I was burned," he added. "And I have to read books more skeptically because I was burned."

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/s...ss_rel_20071114

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/a...-as-a-hoax.aspx

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Just because she is rich doesn't mean she is a good judge of character.

Edited December 29, 2008 by spookyturtle

[Danno 1,228]

<<<Add to this the mindless elevation of victimhood in this country, the mindless celebration of victimhood on talk show after talk show after talk show--the proclaiming of one's wounds, of being praised and respected for the mere fact of one's wounds (not for the manner in which one has responded to them)--add this into the mix, and the credulous celebration of the Rosenblats' fabricated suffering (like the credulous celebration of James Frey's fabricated suffering) seems as much a reflection of the corruption of our culture as of the liars themselves.>>>>

Oprah seems lost as to "why people would do such a thing"..... when in fact She is the biggest contributor to this growing "victim worship" movement in western countries.

Just because she is rich doesn't mean she is a good judge of character.

When people are professionals as Harpo industries is..... they will do basic "fact-check".

[mox 298]

<<<Add to this the mindless elevation of victimhood in this country, the mindless celebration of victimhood on talk show after talk show after talk show--the proclaiming of one's wounds, of being praised and respected for the mere fact of one's wounds (not for the manner in which one has responded to them)--add this into the mix, and the credulous celebration of the Rosenblats' fabricated suffering (like the credulous celebration of James Frey's fabricated suffering) seems as much a reflection of the corruption of our culture as of the liars themselves.>>>>

Oprah seems lost as to "why people would do such a thing"..... when in fact She is the biggest contributor to this growing "victim worship" movement in western countries.

I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think Oprah started it, but she certainly revels in it. Americans, for some twisted reason, LOVE to be victims. We have never seen a tragedy we didn't love.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

When people are professionals as Harpo industries is..... they will do basic "fact-check".

It's not the responsibility of a talk show host's staff to fact-check published memoirs (or books under contract) to make sure the content is truthful. When James Frey's book was exposed as largely fiction, there were many questions regarding whether even the publisher was responsible for verifying the author's story. It's a tricky area that has little to do w/ Oprah, or anyone else who recommends and reviews books.

Edited December 29, 2008 by Big Agnes!

[Ling Ling 22]

<<<Add to this the mindless elevation of victimhood in this country, the mindless celebration of victimhood on talk show after talk show after talk show--the proclaiming of one's wounds, of being praised and respected for the mere fact of one's wounds (not for the manner in which one has responded to them)--add this into the mix, and the credulous celebration of the Rosenblats' fabricated suffering (like the credulous celebration of James Frey's fabricated suffering) seems as much a reflection of the corruption of our culture as of the liars themselves.>>>>

Oprah seems lost as to "why people would do such a thing"..... when in fact She is the biggest contributor to this growing "victim worship" movement in western countries.

I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think Oprah started it, but she certainly revels in it. Americans, for some twisted reason, LOVE to be victims. We have never seen a tragedy we didn't love.

I'm with you guys on the Americans as victims thing. I've never bought into that, but I'll tell you this...after seeing Jessica Cox (the pilot with no arms) I have very little pity for anyone that wakes up breathing and complains they can't do something.

As to this being about Oprah being "had" or that she is not a good judge of character, or that wealth should give someone extra sensory perception...bulksh!t.

For one, there were a lot of people taken in by the guys story, including his agents and publishers. It's not like he told his story to Oprah and she jumped on his bandwagon. Also, since when is anyone above being conned or lied to? Since when does your bank account double as a personal lie detector?

Get real.

[DeadPoolX 9]

<<<Add to this the mindless elevation of victimhood in this country, the mindless celebration of victimhood on talk show after talk show after talk show--the proclaiming of one's wounds, of being praised and respected for the mere fact of one's wounds (not for the manner in which one has responded to them)--add this into the mix, and the credulous celebration of the Rosenblats' fabricated suffering (like the credulous celebration of James Frey's fabricated suffering) seems as much a reflection of the corruption of our culture as of the liars themselves.>>>>

Oprah seems lost as to "why people would do such a thing"..... when in fact She is the biggest contributor to this growing "victim worship" movement in western countries.

I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think Oprah started it, but she certainly revels in it. Americans, for some twisted reason, LOVE to be victims. We have never seen a tragedy we didn't love.

I'd say there are two reasons for that:

1. Americans love publicity. Look at our culture -- it revolves around having the spotlight on you and the belief that you are "special" and "better than everyone else." Those who're athletes, movie stars, rock stars and even those famous for simply being rich, are given far more credence than any "average person."

If your neighbor says something, well... maybe it'll be listened to by a select few who know him. In contrast, it's not unusal for the public to immediately accept whatever a movie star says. Why? Is so-and-so qualified to speak out about whatever the topic is? Probably not, but due to he or she being famous, whatever they say is suddenly a newsworthy piece.

So if someone writes a book that details some evident that people already know of and produce sympathy for (such as the Holocaust), it's not difficult to see how someone might wish to capitalize on that.

2. As Americans, we're often seen as "the king of the hill." Whether or not this is a good thing highly depends on your perspective. The point remains that with the exception of 9/11, the U.S. is rarely a victim. Victimization produces sympathy and -- more often than not -- some sort of understanding. So if an American is a victim of some event or policy, he or she might be viewed more positively by both other Americans and those from foreign countries. After all... this American wasn't taking advantage of others, but got taken advantage of instead.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

The "victims" featured tend to represent something uplifting, centered on overcoming obstacles--addiction, abuse, illness, tragedies of all sorts, etc. I agree that the approach to telling these stories is often cheesy and exploitative, but they're not celebrating victimhood for the sake of it. There's usually some central "You can overcome bad things too!" idea to these features, and the stories (regardless of their authenticity) are compelling. Of course, the need to make stories compelling and relevant is what can lead to embellishments or outright fiction.

[AlHayatZween 2]

In addition to a fascination with victimhood, there is also an obsession with "reality"... reality shows, reality tv, etc...

to the point where it has gotten ridiculous.

It's a real shame because it seems like it would have been a really good read, if only the author had chosen to market it as a novel or literary fiction... Of course, it probably would have been harder to publish that way...

[Chica Yeyé 41]

yawn.

[Danno 1,228]

As to this being about Oprah being "had" or that she is not a good judge of character, or that wealth should give someone extra sensory perception...bulksh!t.

For one, there were a lot of people taken in by the guys story, including his agents and publishers. It's not like he told his story to Oprah and she jumped on his bandwagon. Also, since when is anyone above being conned or lied to? Since when does your bank account double as a personal lie detector?

Get real.

I mentioned her wealth to simply highlight that nobody goes from nothing to a billionaire without

being very business savy... there are way to many clever people who can screw you in making these deals, I doubt she just took everyone at their word.

My other thought was; with the Budget she can afford for her show... don't tell me she can't poke around a little to see if these stories stand up to even basic prodding.

I remember when I heard the claims of her last con-artist Frey.... hell I doubted him right off because some of it did not even make sense. But there she was teary-eyed and soaking it up ....and milking the story out of him.

The first time she got stung like this,one could chalk it up to trusting the Publishers too much.

But here-we-go-again.

She can pretend that it's not her job to check these stories out before parading these people... and their bogus stories out on stage but, I think even "she" would agree with that she has a responsibility to her fans... and her conscience to maintain the shows integrity.

I don't care for the whole Oprah scene but I do think she is an honest person.... in these cases she has acted sloppy in her work and has devalued her trademark.