In the 1990s, when I was a student at University of Maryland, I had a public affairs show on WMUC radio and also frequently wrote for The Diamondback. During the quarantine, I started listening to my old radio show tapes – many of which are embarrassing at this point in my life – but found one that is very interesting in retrospect.
In April of 1996, I interviewed the new Diamondback editor, who was selected for the job in a controversial decision that I didn’t fully understand at the time. I got along with him then, but now fully understand how he was able to fool so many people before he was exposed as a fraud at the New York Times. In fact, whenever I heard folks grumble about him, I dismissed it because that wasn’t the person I knew. A former professor of his even told me that he had a type of personality that was easy to root for. Needless to say, I was in the dark.
That said, I never actually worked directly with him, and those who did were relieved when he was finally exposed. Read this article, with a current colleague of mine prominently featured, to learn the depth of his deception.
Anyway, here’s an excerpt from my radio show after he was selected to be the editor. His tenure there was disastrous (which, again, I didn’t even learn about until years later as I was only a contributor for The Diamondback), so it’s funny now to hear him say that he didn’t anticipate any problems.