Flak
Magazine Statement on James Norton
The editors of Flak Magazine released the following statement regarding former
editor James Norton.
Flak Magazine regrets to announce the departure one of its leading figures, James Norton. The editor of Flak, Norton cofounded the magazine on the back of a placemat, alongside Benjamin Fowler and Nick Coleman, in 1998. Norton's resignation came as the magazine's editorial staff completed a six-month investigation of his work that likely would have led to his termination.
Norton first came under scrutiny in the course of a routine audit of his expense reports. Traditionally, Flak has been run as a collective, with staff members contributing their time and covering any costs incurred in the course of their work. On occasion, however, a staff member might be compensated for expenses above and beyond the ordinary, especially if the story in question is particularly important. In such cases, a special assessment is collected from those listed on the masthead. This system is protected from abuse by an iron-clad honor system, with periodic audits necessary only to humor our accountants. Or so Flak had thought.
In August 2000, Flak rubber-stamped expenses submitted by Norton from his time at that year's Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. These included hotel, car rental and a per diem commensurate with the IRS guidelines for a major metropolitan area, and totaled roughly $735. On closer examination last summer, however, disturbing details came to light. A drugstore receipt listed not only chewing gum, mouthwash and a newspaper, but a can of shaving cream. Longtime readers of Norton's work will recall at once his stated preference for the brush-and-lather method. It was a minor detail, but it proved to be the loose thread in a fabric of malfeasance that continues to unravel to this day, and indeed may never be fully reraveled.
Seeking to learn for whom Norton had purchased the shaving cream, Flak contacted Al Franken, an encounter with whom Norton recounts in his account of the convention. While professing ignorance of the disposition of the lubricant, Franken volunteered the information that Norton had never in fact been at the convention. Not only had his press credentials remained unclaimed, but he himself had prank-called prominent Republicans repeatedly over the course of the week. One rumor had Norton mocking candidate Bush about his father being "too much of a wimp" to take out Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, and saying that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
Further scrutiny of the expense report provided a partial explanation: All of the receipts had been issued by establishments in Myrtle Beach, S.C., including one from a beachfront motel that listed phone charges well into three figures.
Norton's evident falsification of the GOP convention story led Flak's editors to question other of his political reporting. In July 2003, Norton claimed to have intercepted an e-mail from the US ambassador to the Netherlands to Queen Beatrix. A call to the State Department confirmed Flak's growing suspicions: In fact, there is no such country as the Netherlands, and no queen named Beatrix, with the possible exception of Beatrix Potter, the queen of Victorian children's literature.
 |
|
|
Following the theme of e-mail fabrication, Flak's editors called into question
the note Norton claimed to have received last September from former celebrity Tom
Arnold. To our surprise, Arnold confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail,
but went on to reveal something even more disturbing than fan mail forgery: The
endorsement, which Norton apparently considered prestigious, had been bought
and paid for with gratuities including several months of free goatee grooming
by the craven editor. The unusual terms of the arrangement raised suspicions
about another of Norton's pieces: his Peabody Award-winning critical essay on
the Hitler mustache. Had the
topic been inspired by something less savory than mere whimsy? A survey of facial
hair chat rooms revealed the truth: Norton, a hair fetishist, was obsessed with
the idea of reclaiming the sideways pushbroom and restoring it as a legitimate
grooming option.
Norton's willingness to bend his journalism to fit his own hidden agenda cast doubt on the sincerity of his work in general. One piece, in particular, raised troubling questions: a feature on the Almighty Himself. Fearing the worst, Flak consulted the cryptography department of the National Security Agency, which reported that between its lines and among its spaces, the seemingly innocuous text concealed a subliminal code designed to inflict existential dread and shaken faith among its readers. Why would Norton want to do this? Whose purposes would it serve? Once again, the evidence was hidden in plain sight: How would Norton have been familiar with Iraq's on-hold music were he not calling for instructions from his cronies in the royal palace? The discovery of his involvement in a pan-Islamic conspiracy against the United States cast bitterly ironic light on Norton's post-Sept. 11 reporting.
Norton's temerity was not limited to high-profile stories and glamorous datelines. Even his food reporting has come into question. Styling himself Flak's answer to Ruth Reichl, he introduced the world to such delicacies as bread in a can, hot dogs with tentacles, Grapermelon gum and McCain Smiles. It has since been learned that Norton held a significant financial interest in each of these products — that, in fact, he produced them himself, in the shared kitchen of a Cambridge, Mass., flophouse, constituting each from assorted scraps, refuse and vermin droppings. Even Norton's lauded film criticism failed to hold up when it was learned that he is, in fact, too
morbidly obese to fit into the seats of any first-run theater. Furthermore, his accomplishments at Diablo II and even his ability to hum the music from The Legend of Zelda were highly overstated.
On learning last week of the investigation in progress, Norton first professed his innocence, then accused his fellow editors of conspiring against him. After a period of attempted bargaining one editor later described as "worse than pathetic," Norton assumed an attitude of defiance, saying "You can't fire me — I quit." Appropriately, the spontaneity of the gesture was feigned, as became clear when a petulant and vindictive resignation letter was found at his desk.
In the wake of the unfortunate Norton affair, Flak managing editor Eric Wittmershaus and miscellaneous editor J. Daniel Janzen have jointly assumed the editorship of the magazine effective immediately. Said Wittmershaus, "Our first order of business will be to put all this behind us and try to forget that Norton ever existed." Janzen echoed the sentiment, adding, "Norton who?"
