DROPPING THE BOMB ON FACTS RADIATES GREAT SALES

BOOM! That's the sound of the cash registers at Amazon.com crashing to the floor as sales ring up for Charles Pellegrino's "Last Train from Hiroshima," a historical look at the dropping of the atomic bomb based largely on the interview of one source, Joseph Fuoco, who claimed to have flown on the mission as a last-minute replacement for flight engineer James R. Corliss and further claimed that a few soldiers loading the bomb onto the Enola Gay died from radiation leaks. (Both claims have since been debunked.)



If you've been following the torrent of "bad press" which has dogged the book's release since the Associated Press first put the publisher to the firestorm last month and led Henry Holt and Company to halt production (and soon after led Barnes and Noble to pull the book from their shelves), then you know that not checking your facts, especially when writing about such a, if you'll pardon the pun, stratospherically profiled event can have apocalyptic repercussions. Or can it?


Today we learn that the debunking of the book has apparently made its sales increase.


This strikes me as a curious phenomenon and seems to fly in the face of common sense like so much fallout your dog might swallow while sticking his head out of a car driving through the boulevards of a post-nuked city.


I will withhold my opinions here pending reading and considering your own. But I imagine that you, too, might conclude that this outcome could only happen in an era of instant, unedited, point-and-click journalism and general apathy where pillars of sports, finance, and politics, and celebrities in general fall from grace as quickly as Little Boy and Fat Man sped to their pre-assigned targets only to be placated by our ubiquitous forgiveness for anyone who or any institution that (publishing now joining the ranks) makes a major intentional or unintentional faux pas.


Write away folks. But do it quick. You never know when the next bomb might drop.


e.i.