Does anyone doubt that
somewhere in the dark recesses of America lives an 8-year-old heroin addict?
We mostly remember Janet Cooke, The Washington Post writer who told us the gripping, 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning story of Jimmy, the 8-year-old who was pushed into heroin addiction by his mother's live-in boyfriend, only to have Cooke admit later under editorial scrutiny that ``Jimmy'' as a living, identifiable person didn't exist; she had made up the whole story of him and his addiction.
Cooke, it turned out, had made up lots of stories, most of them about her credentials. She claimed to have graduated from Vassar College, she claimed to speak four languages, she claimed to have attended the Sorbonne in Paris; in fact, these lies-- all unchecked until after the fiasco of Jimmy-- landed her the job at the Post.
Because of her fabrication, Cooke was humiliated and lost her job, and the Post, her crusading employer then guided by editor Ben Bradlee, returned Cooke's prize.
At one point, Cooke told editors at the Post she had prayed she wouldn't win the prize. In the glaring wake of her fame, Cooke's colleagues, former employees, and newshounds seeking to document her rising star ultimately brought her down. Administrators at Vassar and editors at The Toledo Blade, where she'd worked before going to Washington, led the process when they questioned the Post about its reporter's education and work credentials.
Journalism took many jabs on the chin that were wrapped in the sins of Janet Cooke, and in the media-bashing, questioning-reporter's-ethics flurry that followed, nobody bothered to ask whether, despite Jimmy's fictionality, it didn't remain true that American hell-holes devoured some anonymous 8-year-olds into addictive oblivion.
Sadly, the internal story of life at the Post blinded the newspaper, its readers and the nation from focusing on heroin in the streets.
Bradlee retired in 1991, a decade after the Cooke affair, and in 1995 he wrote a best-selling autobiography that includes a chapter devoted to Cooke, whom he characterizes as ``a cross that journalism, especially The Washington Post, and especially Benjamin C. Bradlee, will bear forever.''
Bradlee's chapter, which details the behind-the-scenes discoveries, probes, counselings and confrontations of the Post's editors as Cooke first denied then confessed her fabrication, is annoyingly defensive and never addresses what happened with Cooke's original assignment to research a new form of heroin hitting the streets of D.C.
Instead, Bradlee praises the ombudsman he assigned to get to the bottom of the internal story, highlights his own interrogation-- in French -- of his reporter's alleged linguistic skills, and breathes more easily when he finally signs Mary McGrory from the collapsed rival Washington Star, as if the signing of McGrory had assuaged his anguished guilt for hiring and firing Cooke.
Cooke declined Bradley's invitation to talk with him for the book, but after 15 years of exile from professional and public life, Cooke emerged this summer in a 12,000-word biographical magazine article by Mike Sagar in the June issue of GQ.
Cooke, now 42 years old and most recently earning a meagre living as a sales clerk in a Kalamazoo, Mich., store, has appeared with Ted Koppel on ``Nightline'' and with Bryant Gumbel on ``Today.''
She and Sagar -- an ex-Post colleague and former boyfriend of Cooke's -- a few months ago signed a contract with TriStar Pictures to make a film of her story, based on Sagar's article, that, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, has already netted $750,000 in manuscript form and stands to make that much again when the movie is made.
Cooke, according to Sagar, is now seeking ``the retrieval of her name from the files of infamy.'' Her 55 percent share in the planned film is apparently only a first step.
She handpicked Sagar to write her story because she didn't want to write it herself and appear self-serving.
Sagar thinks the media is ready to forgive. He writes that the media have ``taken on new and different roles, one of which is Father Confessor. People today know well that the surest route back to grace is a massive public appeal.''
Sagar's GQ article represents that appeal for Cooke. According to Sagar, Cooke has learned to stop lying. He calls it ``a beginning.''
In the wake of Sagar's June article, journalists have debated Cooke's position and whether she should be trusted as a reporter again.
Some, like Wayne Dawkins of Gannett's Camden (N.J.) Courier-Post, contend Cooke's apology has come too late and that 15 years is not long enough for her exile.
Others, like Pete Dexter of the Indianapolis Business Journal, think the profession can show some compassion and let her move on to the next rung of her life and career.
Rosemary Armao, the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, wrote to GQ, attacking Sagar's sympathetic article and contending that Cooke has done little ``to win back trust.''
Cooke's sin, Armao contends, tarnished the trustworthiness of all newsgatherers. She doesn't belong in the profession, Armao implies.
When we become part of the story, we journalists are notorious for getting in the way of the news, and now Janet Cooke is back to help us put our blinders on again, forcing us into pointless intramural debate.
When she was fired and the Post gave her prize back, we -- including the Post -- forgot about Jimmy, or whoever he might be.
The 8-year-old of Cooke's spurious story would be 23 now; for all we know, he's still there. We read of the rise of heroin use in the country, much of it by college-age students. Drug-use has become a background issue of the 1996 presidential campaign.
The problem Janet Cooke, reporter, set out to investigate seems to be hounding the nation yet, and journalism is wasting time trying to decide if she should be allowed back into our ranks.
Who's out there looking for and looking after Jimmy?