byLarry EderReposted on April 1, 2018
I recently was thinking about the rumors that cross my desk in a week, hidden as “leads”. So called leads, are urban legends, smear campaigns, total bull shit, and, sometimes, there might be a kernal of truth. It is my job, as a journalist, to try and decipher the kernal of truth in a large pile of horse manure. I re read this column to remind myself that, truth is so important, and the time it takes to discern the truth is needed. I just can not fill in the missing pieces because it makes a good story. I thought this was a good one to re read on Easter Sunday and the weekend of Passover. Read this, consider this. Remember, lying is so easy, fighting for truth is a much more arduous action.
Originally posted June 23, 2015
The Art of Lying was to be a book written by the late James Dunaway. We had many discussions over this topic for the last five years of his life. It was how James and I came to discuss how lying had become such a part of our global culture.
So with apologies to Mr. Dunaway, who laughed at only one of my jokes (taken from Woody Allen: On why one could be an agnostic: I am not sure if there is an afterlife, but, just in case, I packing several extra pairs of clean underwear), I am starting a series, on the Art of Lying.
Blocks at New Balance Indoor GP, photo by Larry Eder
I truly admired Brian Williams, and still do. In the end, Brian Williams is only human. The difference between Mr. Williams and you or I is that he told his tall tales on national television and was taken to task by men and women who would have given their lives to keep Mr. Williams alive.
It is one thing to tell someone you caught a six pound bass (when it was three pounds), or that you met David Bowie (were in same concert hall). Sometimes, and I have found this out by personal experience, there is a fascinating parallel to how much alcohol one has drank and how far the stories go.
Mr. Williams was the icon of a global television network. We loved him because he seemed like a nice guy and was self deprecating. Americans like that in their leaders. If you can not make fun of yourself, good luck.
The late James Dunaway and I discussed lying, mostly after a beverage or two, or when we were at our wits end after a long editorial discussion. James believed, and I concur, that lying is part of all cultures.
We lie to make ourselves feel better, make others feel better, because we ar insecure, having bad hair day, or our favorite sports team just got, well, decimated. And, there are many other reasons as well.
A digression…the great writer, Bert Rosenthal, who wrote for AP before it was AP, once told me that all he knew about a major sports figure was that he lied, and they were not good lies. James Dunaway once told a major executive that ” You have one lie with me, so make it good.”
Another digression…it is Cerritos, California around 1990. The USA Outdoor has been moved to Cerritos that year, and I was watching our son, Adam, who was about three. Keeping him enthused during long track meet days was an art form that his mother, Christine, was much better at, but on this situation, I had found a dirt shot put ring and Adam was kicking up a dust storm. He was laughing as only a three year old could and having a blast. Out of the dust came this gargantuan of a man. Obviously a shot putter, I thought at first it was Randy Barnes. I was right.
Randy proceeded to look down at Adam, from his high perch, and actually interacted with my three year old. After that, Randy and Adam kicked up dirt in the ring for several minutes.
I was quite impressed, and Randy gave me an interview that I still have stuffed into a box in my farm house in Wisconsin. Barnes was amazing: likeable, a foe of drug use and a guy who liked kids. He sure had not played me, and I just felt the guy was, well, a good guy.
Several years later, when Randy tested positive, I was confused and frustrated. How could such a good guy do something so wrong?
Every time a drug controversy comes to the fore, I am reminded of my time with Randy Barnes.
I am sitting in the airport in San Francisco, waiting for my flight to Eugene. I love the U.S. Champs, a celebration of running, jumping and throwing. The excitement of competition and the re-telling of stories for the thousandth time at the Wild Duck Cafe. Or, sitting over with the HOKA ONE ONE Aggies, eating sunflower seeds with former coaching partner, Joe Mangan, and his grown sons.
In Birmingham, on June 7, 2015, I had just arrived from Boston, and went to the Mo Farah Press conference. Mo Farah, Neil Black and Niels de Vos, the two Neils from British Athletics, book ended Mo. Mo Farah was under constant questioning. Mo repeated, “You guys are killing me” as every question, but two, were on Farah and drug allegations with his coach, Alberto Salazar. No one was saying that Mo Farah was using drugs, but they sure wanted to catch him. It was a media feeding frenzy. It was like putting a bucket of anchovies into the water and waiting for sharks to rise to the bait.
The problem was not that the BBC Panoramo program was covering part of the sport culture, where lying is supreme, it was, in my mind, how poorly that they did the program. And anything that Mo Farah did or it was suggested that he did, became fuel to the fire. A missed drug test in 2010 and 2011 became “two missed tests during Mo’s buildup to London.” Really?
That, folks, some might call exaggeration. That action, in my parlance and culture, is called lying. In the Marion Jones drama and subsequent Lance Armstrong fiasco, much was never answered. Suffice it to say, in our modern society,that money, prestige and sports culture are strange bedfellows.
The current controversy over Alberto Salazar, Galen Rupp, and Mo Farah, is sad any way one looks at it.
I will hold my jugement until Alberto Salazar responds.
I have experienced, first hand, issues in drug investigations. Having written on drug positives, I have to say that there is too much here to say for my liking this controversy. Mo Farah hired a PR firm, Freud, and they issued a statement. Like Mo’s ill advised departure from Birmingham, the press release said nothing, and that just have have given Mo Farah some breathing room.
I watched the BBC Panorama program. Well produced, but produced someone who does not understand track and field, nor understand the under belly of drug cheating.
It is all about lying. Lying to oneself, lying to others. A person in position of authority tells an athlete that he or she will only make it to the top by cheating like everyone else.
Another lie.
