This was bound to come up, so let me dive into this now and tell
the full story. (I hope someone will archive this out there, so that if
and when it comes up again, the reply will be available.)
I have no vested interest in Joel Engel or his book. My first
contact with Engel was when he wrote a bio of Rod Serling, and I booked
him on Hour 25 -- my L.A. based talk show on KPFK-FM -- in order to rake
him over the coals. (Needless to say, I'm a major Serling fan.) We went
toe to toe for two hours, and many listeners felt that I was very hard on
him. (And, in fact, I probably was; it's not easy when someone tackles
one of your icons in full view.)
What I found was someone who had no agenda but to get out the story,
as fully and factually as he could. Whatever he said, he had at least
two and usually more sources on. As a former journalist myself, I could
find nothing wrong in his methodology or his motivation. I built a
grudging respect for him over the length of that interview.
He caught a *lot* of flack over that book, and I guess it was about
a year later when he called and said that he was going to do his next book
after a subject that would not be as controversial. Roddenberry. He knew
of Roddenberry's work, though he had no connection with the person
himself, and figured the book would be a cakewalk.
Much to his dismay, he discovered that he was wrong. The story was
riddled with controversy, and a very different image than the one usually
projected. He lamented in one phone conversation (we spoke maybe six
times in the course of writing the book, it's not any kind of real
relationship; mainly he was hoping I could point him in one direction or
the other for sources, one journalist to another) that those who spoke
most positively of GR were those who never worked with him, while he wdas
having the devil's own time trying to get anything positive out of anyone
who *had* worked with him. This was NOT what he had wanted to get into,
and apparently several times offered to give back the advance, just to get
out of the book....but a contract is a contract, and he was under an
obligation to tell the story as best and as accurately as he could.
Engel -- who has worked for the NY Times -- has *no* connection to
Star Trek, *no* axe to grind, *no* interest in doing a hatchet job on
anyone. If anything, he was hoping to *avoid* this kind of book. He made
it a point *not* to sensationalize in the book. If anything, it's rather
dry in places, specifically because he's trying to avoid even the
appearance of exploitationalism. He is a very thorough, careful reporter,
and is careful not to say *anything* for which he doesn't have multiple
sources.
Once word got out about the book coming out, many of those closest
to GR began a process of damage control, accusing -- falsely, in my
judgment -- Engel of bias, of doing a deliberate hatchet job, of having
an agenda, on and on and on. I have made it a point to try and speak
honestly and frankly on this and other systems, and I can tell you point
blank that he operates under none of these. He did not set out to "dig
up dirt" or to "do a hatchet job." He wanted to tell the full story, as
much as could be verified factually. There's a *lot* of stuff he got
that didn't end up in the book, which *would* have been sensational, but
because he didn't have multiple sources, or because he felt it really
didn't belong in the book, were omitted.
When he finished the book, he asked me to read it in case I wanted
to give him a quote. I accepted the book, figuring that I probably would
NOT give him a quote, simply because I wanted to stay out of the line of
fire. When I finished it, I found that it was an honest, straightforward
job of good journalism, and knew *instantly* that it would come under a
great deal of fire, most of it unfair, and total misrepresentation by
certain portions of the fan community. In light of that, I felt honor
bound to give some sort of quote.
And that, as they say, is that.
This isn't an easy area for anyone. As somebody once said,
biography has lent death a new horror. Probably 25 years from now,
somebody'll write a book telling about how Larry DiTillio was really the
secret brains behind Babylon 5....
jms |
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