I repeat: It is fiction. I don’t mean it’s biased, I mean the Fake Christian lefty just made the story up — based on real reports and real science, she says — to serve as a harrowing morality play about vaccine hesitancy.
And The Atlantic, looking to get some viral advertising, presented it as fact until other reporters started asking about it.
The story — the fiction — was originally published as a 100% true factual “journalistic” account, with no warning or disclaimer to alert readers to the contrary.
At least, not until The Atlantic’s foray into Imaginary Journalism began provoking a reaction from journalists who like to pretend they don’t do this same thing every single day.
When I initially read Bruenig’s story, I was stunned: An Atlantic staff writer’s unvaccinated child had died of measles in the 2020s, and now she was writing about it? At the end of Bruenig’s piece, though, there’s an editor’s note: “This story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.” That was the point when I sent a gift link to my mom group: “as far as I can tell this piece is fiction. What do we think about this choice? I am very conflicted!!!” My conflict stemmed from my concern that, though the piece was heavily researched, it was not a true story. I wondered if the key people whose minds might be changed by it — people who don’t vaccinate their kids — would brush it off as fiction, or fake.
And that’s this journalist’s only concern — not that falsehood is being presented as fact, but just that this story, once revealed to be fiction, would fail to serve its purpose as pro-vaccine propaganda.
“My conflict stemmed from my concern that, though the piece was heavily researched, it was not a true story. I wondered if the key people whose minds might be changed by it — people who don’t vaccinate their kids — would brush it off as fiction, or fake.”
Yes, we wouldn’t want readers brushing off a fictitious story as fiction, would we?