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First Personal Problems

Tuesday: March 4th 2008

When I wrote about the show about gangs on Monday, I mentioned a guest we'd planned to have on.

Her name, we thought then, was Margaret Jones. And her insight into gangs, we thought then, came from growing up in a foster family in South Central L.A. and becoming part of the Bloods, the gang that ran her street there.

She cancelled the interview Friday afternoon, or rather, her publicist did, citing "personal reasons." Pretty big personal reasons - it turns out she fabricated her entire story.

Emily, you are one lucky woman. Oprah spent months getting the stink of James Frey away from her.
BillBrueggemeyer —
Yes - well, you can imagine that wasn't our first thought when she cancelled at 3:30 Friday afternoon! But yes again, we were quite relieved in retrospect - and re-thinking any clues that might have tipped us off.

Only one - and not a very strong one. Tom Cole of Kids Unlimited - who was a guest on the show - said prior to the program her story sounded really unusual, because most people in the situation she described in the book wouldn't have gotten the break of getting into college she claimed.

I feel it's particularly sad if she really was trying to get attention to the complex experience of living with gangs. She says a lot of the detail was based on real situations she witnessed or heard about while doing anti-gang work in LA.

Now it's just a guessing game which details in the quite compelling read might be true.
Emily Harris —

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