Who Is Paul Brennan? Or Is It Will Swaim?
Posted by: Jubal | 01/04/2008 11:38 AM
As readers may recall, the April 14, 2006 edition of the OC Weekly contained a story entitled "Who Is Jubal?" which completed the slow-motion revelation of my identity that had begun a few months earlier. It led me to write my "I Am Jubal" post and bring what was already a pretty open secret fully into the open. The "Who Is Jubal" article was written by then-OC Weekly staffer Paul Brennan.
Or at least I thought it was. After all, that was the name after the word "by" under the headline in both the print and online editions of OC Weekly, which customarily indicates the identity of the author. That was the name of the guy who e-mailed me a list of when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife questions for a follow-up story. A subsequent letter to the editor refers to "Paul Brennan's 'Who Is Jubal?'" -- a reference inserted by the Weekly, not the letter writer.
So imagine my surprise upon coming across this October 2007 post by former OC Weekly editor-in-chief Will Swaim over at his current haunt, The District Weekly, in which he states "I wrote this piece" -- and hyperlinks those words back to the "Who Is Jubal?" article.
I clicked on the link and sure enough, at some point the Weekly switched the byline from "Paul Brennan" to "Will Swaim."
A little more Googling brought up this April 27, 2006 post "Jubollocks, Part II" by Paul Brennan in which he further discusses "his" article. Brennan's post is a follow-up to an April 26, 2006 post Swaim had written called "Jubollocks" that was itself a follow-up to the "Who Is Jubal?" article supposedly written by Paul Brennan.
But what do you know? The link to Swaim's "Jubollocks" post is dead because the post has been popped down the memory hole. But you can still find it here, courtesy of the Internet Wayback Machine.
Mind you, the main thrust of the "Who Is Jubal?" article was to attack me for linking to "Jubal" posts on OC Blog from my FlashReport Blog posts as if they were by a different person -- something I did on a number of occasions in order to protect my pseudonymity when I was still pseudonymous.
I find it more than a little ironic to discover it was Will Swaim who wrote an article accusing me of using my pseudonymity to "abuse the trust of his readers" and engaging in a "fraudulent little duet" -- and then misled his readers into believing his story was written by someone else.
And it's ironic Swaim, in his "Jubollocks" post, says I should thankful for "Pat Brennan's" story and castigates me for "prais[ing] under one byline the work he produces under another. In journalism, we call that logrolling, and it's dishonest."
He forgot to add, "Unless you're Will Swaim, that is. Then it's A-OK."
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Mr. Ayer registered as a Republican to be electable in an interim election with no incumbents. He did...
Nobody should be surprised. Smarmy Swaim always ran a silly game boasting about how they were ace journalists but whenever they were called out for embellishing information or manufacturing ‘facts’ they would fall back on “don’t take us too seriously” “we’re a lampoon” shucks, don’t be so thin skinned etc…
Swaim and the Weakly were low grade political activists masquerading as journalists. They should get their stories straight and figure out what they want to be. Regardless, they’re failures at both.
Hmmm...where's the omnipresent Gustavo with a witty comment?
Say it ain't so! Will Swaim, who bragged about the Weekly's double-triple-supercalifragilistic fact checking, lied to the readers?
Knock me over with a feather.
http://www.ocweekly.com/features/oc-5th-anniversary/our-remotest-reader/17522/
Willyboy: I'm right here! Just busy trying to write my weekly food review!
Jim: We always appreciate specific examples when folks accuse us of lying!
Jubal: Funny you do this post right now! For the past week or so, I've been reorganizing my old blog posts that were lost when our blog changed names (and URLs) from The Blotter to Navel Gazing. When you wrote that Jubollocks was nowhere to be found, I thought it odd since I remember most of the blog posts we strike down for various reasons--and that wasn't one of them. Don't go blaming our web editor for this disappearance--whenever the post was deleted or lost (there's no record of it in our archives, but I can't find other posts as well), it happened before Will and the Others left.
As for the question of authorship: Will, obviously, should have the final word. This is what I remember: it was supposed to be a much-longer story. Brennan wrote the first draft (hence, the email you received), but apparently did a terrible job because Will chopped it down and reedited it to the piece we eventually published. Maybe down the line, Brennan no longer wanted to be credited as author ala Alan Smithee or Will figured he rewrote it so much he might as well receive credit? Not sure--you'll have to ask Will.
And lest people think "Paul Brennan" is a pseudonym like Jubal, Paul does exist, as the above link points out. Plus, we let him go last April. Now, back to crafting overblown metaphors about Thai food...
Forgot: one minor error in your post. Paul was never a Weekly staffer--he was a freelancer.
Gustavo:
I received the e-mail from Brennan AFTER the story ran. He said it was for a follow up. No one from the Weekly contacted me while the story was being written. I found out about it the day it came out.
But thanks for letting me know that Will was busily editing and re-writing Brennan's story. Now I know that while he was getting the hit piece on me ready for publication, Will was also engaging me in a friendly e-mail correspondence about the Harkey-Harman race. Swaim wanted to pick my brain about the campaigns, particularly an upcoming OC GOP Ethics Committee hearing about either a Harkey or Harman mailer (I don't recall which it was).
Nice.
Like I said: that's what I remember. I don't have any insight into the story's methodology, or even whose words are whose.
Who cares? The bigger issue is that Matt lied to us for a long time. He even talked about himself in the third person.
He never should have made up the Jubal identity and he should not be using it now. It is not a badge of honor but rather a reminder of his past subterfuge.
Much Ado About Nothing i say.
Who cares?
Ah, Art Pedroza weighs in with his razor-sharp debating technique.
The bigger issue is that Matt lied to us for a long time.
This from the guy who lied to his readers about why he backed Janet Nguyen for Supervisor in the special; the guy who praised her qualifications even when he really thought she was an empty suit. Who lied about deleting comments on OJ while criticizing me for our policy of deleting comments that violate the comments section rules. What a joke.
I didn't lie to anyone. I kept my identity a secret. Huge difference. Not that I expect Art to be able to make such a fundamental discernment.
He never should have made up the Jubal identity and he should not be using it now.
Really? Says who? Art Pedroza and his incomprehensible sense of self-importance? The same Art Pedroza who has a pseudonymous blogger on his own blog?
What a hypocrite.
And now we can await one of Art's Tourette Syndrome responses.