Oxford American Editor Responds

Last week, I linked to an article in the Houston Press in which John Nova Lomax accused the Oxford American of selling us a bill of goods.  Lomax took issue with the OA's use of a JT Leroy piece on Lorreta Lynn, stating that the Leroy piece should not have been labeled an essay but instead as creative non-fiction.  Oxford American's editor and publisher Marc Smirnoff has responded to the article with a letter to the Houston Press.  He has sent along a copy of this letter to Syntax of Things which I'm posting below the cut:

Dear Houston Press,

The distortions in John Nova Lomax's recent column ('Coal Miner Mother of a Mess') about J.T. LeRoy and THE OXFORD AMERICAN's new Music Issue need to be addressed. In his depiction of a ten-minute phone interview he conducted with me, Mr. Lomax says I "questioned [his] credentials, cut [him] off several times and told [him] [I] only glanced at the e-mails" between Mr. Lomax and Mr. LeRoy.

1. "Questioned his credentials." Since I've never heard of Mr. Lomax, I merely asked what position he manned at the paper, reporter or columnist.

Contrary to his dramatic implication, I did not ask him about his 'credentials'--i.e. which school he attended, his I.Q., his propensity for axe-grinding, whether he had ever been guilty of factual errors, or errors of logic, in his writing, etc.

2. "Cutting him off." I hope Mr. Lomax taped our conversation. If so, anybody listening to it will confirm that it was only AFTER Mr. Lomax interrupted me (at least twice) that I cut him off. I cut him off to say that I thought it improper for an interviewer to interrupt a person attempting to answer his questions.

3. "Only glanced at his e-mails." This is a case of making a subject look bad by pushing words out of context, an old but detestable trick. As I clearly explained to Mr. Lomax when I returned his phone call (immediately), I was that week vacationing on a beach in a distant state and had only limited access to a computer, which is why I could only glance at the e-mails. I also told him that I had noticed, in my glancing, "nuances on both sides." My respect for these nuances compelled me to want to read the e-mails carefully before commenting on them, a fair-enough decision I thought.

Mr. Lomax is a purposeful writer and he knows that his phrasing would lead an impartial reader to conclude that it was arrogance or laziness that had caused me to ignore the all-important e-mails.

Mr. Lomax is not the first reporter to strong-arm an interview subject's words and meaning out of context, but it is nonetheless wrong for him to do so, especially in a piece about journalistic ethics.

I would also like to point out that Mr. Lomax promised that he would quote me "verbatim." If by "verbatim," he meant (as any standard dictionary does) in totality, "word by word," then most assuredly Mr. Lomax did not keep his promise otherwise your readers would have learned that I put Mr. LeRoy's creative nonfiction in the same defensible category as I put the creative nonfiction of icons like Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Joseph Mitchell.

Finally, it'€™s worth noting that in a piece focusing on whether we labeled a piece properly or not, Mr. Lomax himself commits mislabeling. He does this when he gives Rick Clark sole credit for "harvesting rare treasures from canonical artists" for THE OXFORD AMERICAN's CD. Meanwhile, it is stated explicitly on both the CD and in the magazine itself that Mr. Clark is our "co-compiler." I adore Rick Clark but the fact is that seventy percent of the songs on this year's CD were unearthed by the staff of THE OXFORD AMERICAN and our readers, not by Mr. Clark.

I'm fine with Mr. Lomax thinking I made a bad decision in labeling Mr. LeRoy'€™s creative nonfiction an essay. That'€™s a defensible criticism. What I'€™m not fine with is Mr. Lomax anointing himself arbiter of journalistic ethics when he himself appears so lacking in them.

Marc Smirnoff

Comments

[Damien]

Lomax is a douche.