First Take: A shorthand term for the ways that Long-form journalism, Creative Nonfiction, and nonfiction generally have been subject to periodic scandals and debates in the U.S.(and elsewhere) about the central role of verifiable facts—or, conversely, the place of embellishment, strategic conflations of time and place, composite characters, or even creative license and/or fabrication.

Deeper: Famous instances of these debates include those surrounding the Janet Cooke scandal at the Washington Post in 1980-81, involving Cooke’s creation of a composite character; the liberties attributed to instances of the New Journalism involving Truman Capote, Michael Herr, and others; the scandals involving the inventions of Jayson Blair and Michael Finkel at the New York Times in 2002-03, or Stephen Glass at the New Republic in 1988; and the debate re-staged within John D’Agata and Jim Fingal, The Lifespan of a Fact (2012).

Recommended Reading:  David Eason, “On Journalistic Authority:  The Janet Cooke Scandal,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 3(1986): 429-447.