How did a Valley Girl convince Times she was a ghetto chick? A literary fraudster takes the newspaper of record for a ride-and our columnist suffers flashbacks.(MediaWorks)

Advertising Age, March, 2008 by Dumenco, Simon

Byline: Simon Dumenco

On feb. 28, my journalist friend Matt Haber e-mailed me a link to an article titled "A Refugee From Gangland'' from that day's New York Times, along with a note that read, "OK, maybe I'm a cynic, but doesn't this woman's story seem a bit fantastical? Or at least a bit perfectly memoir-ish?''

The piece was a profile of Margaret B. Jones, "a mixed-race white and Native American foster child ... who was dealing drugs on the streets of South Central Los Angeles before she hit puberty,'' as the Times put it. In addition to that profile, I'd also read the paper's rave about Jones' just-published memoir, "Love and Consequences,'' days earlier, and I wrote back to Matt, "Oh geez, I know! I thought exactly the same thing when I read the...

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