When Steve Friess saw Friday’s GalleyCat interview with Christina Binkley, the WSJ columnist whose credibility he’s spent the better part of two weeks smearing in venues ranging from USA Today to Las Vegas Weekly to his own blog, he was so perturbed by Binkley’s dismissal of his claims about the wrongness of Winner Takes All, her history of modern Las Vegas, that he dashed off a couple angry emails.
You’ll recall that in his USA Today review, Friess claimed that Binkley had never spoken face-to-face with MGM Mirage CEO Terry Lanni. This understandably bothered Binkley, who told me that his statement undermined the credibiility of the direct quotes in Winner Takes All from her interviews with Lanni. So Friess’s first email to me Friday had an MP3 attachment from what purports to be a conversation in which Friess asks Lanni if Binkley interviewed him for the book and Lanni says no, and then he told me “Binkley thinks maybe Lanni didn’t understand the question.”
So I call Binkley, and she tells me that she spoke to Lanni after she heard about that conversation, that he confirmed to her that they had spoken, and that a corporate spokesperson at the Mirage would also confirm that the interviews took place—if, that is, Friess would bother to double-check with Lanni. At that point, I email Friess back, tell him I have no idea of knowing whose voices are on that tape—would he mind giving me the contact info for a spokesperson at the Mirage, and I’ll put the question to that spokesperson or to Lanni himself. As he’s giving me that contact info, he confirms, without my having raised the issue, that he refuses to recheck the accuracy of his lead, despite the fact that a corporate spokesperson has confirmed to him that the interviews took place and that “it is possible Lanni didn’t realize that she was interviewing him for a book.” (Keep in mind, Friess’s printed position is that “Lanni gave no face-to-face access,” not that he did not know or understand the purpose of the interviews even Friess now seems to concede he did give.)
“Is it the job of every journalist to go back to their sources and ask then [sic] again and again when they answer a simple question?” Friess asks. “If she has something to prove, it’s her responsibility to have him call me. How is it my job to run around trying to prove I made mistakes when I did what I was supposed to do—I asked the question and got the answer.”
I’ve sent an email requesting clarification to the spokesperson at the Mirage; if anything comes of that, I’ll be sure to mention it. (UPDATE: Alan Feldman emails back: “Mr. Lanni was interviewed many times by Ms. Binkley during her long tenure as the gaming reporter for the Wall Street Journal. I personally made the arrangements for her interviews while she was writing her book. It is possible that I was not clear enough in explaining to Mr. Lanni the background for those interviews related to the book.” Does that sound to you like Lanni gave no face-to-face access?)
Friess then sent a separate email about the dichotomy I’d perceived between saying Winner Takes All was “marred by some mistakes” and “rife with factual mistakes,” some and rife being somewhat contradictory terms. “I was in Switzerland on vacation when the [USA Today] review was edited and wasn’t really scrutinizing readbacks as I usually do,” Friess says, “although I probably wouldn’t have noticed this anyway. But my original line leading into the section on Binkley’s errors actually read: ‘There are also factual mistakes unexpected from a reporter of this stature.'”
That would indeed be indicative of a more consistent take on the book—and since the issue taken here was never with Friess’s double-dipping (I understand those vacations to Switzerland don’t just pay for themselves, after all), but with his telling one audience one story about the book and another audience another story, I suppose I can give him the benefit of the doubt and let him blame this whole brouhaha on some editor in Virginia. Shame on you, editor, for soft-pedaling Friess’s scorn! Fortunately, he is a magnaminous sort, and likely to forgive you.