Sucked in by corporate malfeasance

'Opal Mehta' Won't Get a Life After All - New York Times: Little, Brown, publisher of the novel whose author, Kaavya Viswanathan, admitted to copying passages from another writer's books, said yesterday that it would not be publishing a revised edition of her book.

If you haven't been following this sorry scandal which has been unfolding over the past week or two, it is an interesting case. On the surface, it seems to be the story of a 19 yr. old immigrant writer named Kaavya Vishwanathan (from India), apparently brilliant enough to get into Harvard, seduced by the American dream into trying to publish a best-seller by copying from a few books.

But what lies under the surface, while still not excusing her behavior is far less palatable. Apparently, she fell into the clutches of a "book packaging" company called Alloy Entertainment, which according to Tim Rutten, in this savage critique of this industry, creates characters and plots, then finds writers to execute them and provides editing and design to create "a package."

I especially liked John Carroll's (the former Times' Editor) quote: "Under the old local owners, a newspaper's capacity for making money was only part of its value. Today, it is everything."