New Yorker Writer Shared Doubts on Japanese âFamily Rentalâ Article Before Publication
The magazine has added an editorâs note saying three leading figures in the article made false claims
Yuichi Ishii, owner of Family Romance, appeared in a 2019 movie by German director Werner Herzog about his business. Photo: MUBI By Jan. 11, 2021 6:55 am ET
TOKYOâA New Yorker staff writer who researched a âfamily rentalâ service in Japan expressed concern before publication that her sources might not be telling the truth, according to people who spoke with her.
The New Yorker won a National Magazine Award in feature writing for the April 2018 article, âA Theory of Relativity,â by staff writer
The New Yorker Fell Into the “Weird Japan” Trap
Elif Batuman was duped by a source’s fabrications about the country’s rent-a-family industry. What went wrong?
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
It has not been a good year for anyone, but it’s been an especially bad year for the fact-checkers of highbrow magazines. In November,
The Atlanticappended an extraordinary editor’s note to a story written by Ruth Barrett, née Shalit, disclosing that Barrett, among other exaggerations and falsehoods, had encouraged a source to fabricate details about her life, including that the source had a son when she did not. Barrett came clean, sort of, admitting that “on some level I did know that it was BS” and “I do take responsibility.”