While journalists eventually get sacked for inventing interviews, there’s no rule preventing interviewees from inventing stories, or inventions. Unfortunately, even if the inventions are as far-fetched as book readings without authors, news-hungry bloggers buy them and local papers sic their ludic columnists on them.
The St. Petersburg Times, however, reaps the benefits of sane suspicions:
Just as our conversation was winding down, Atwood, a descendant of Nova Scotians who she says love to tell whopping lies just to see what you’ll fall for, tells me about the latest addition to her already impressive resume […]
On my part, I should have known better when Atwood used the words “democratising” and “change” while talking about the book industry:
Far from estranging author and audience, Atwood said, the machine was “a democratising device” which could help authors who were not stars, and often missed out on signing tours. Her invention could change all that.
Previously on GC: Close at Hand : Atwood, Nan Talese & Unotchit