Editor Pamela White penned a 5,175-word article for the Feb. 2 issue of Boulder Weekly, detailing how an "expert" she had used was actually a fraud. David Race Bannon is the author of Race Against Evil, a supposed former Interpol assassin, and a source for the Weekly's Sept. 9, 2004 story "Suffer the Children" on the international child sex trade. On Jan. 27, Bannon was arrested by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on suspicion of criminal impersonation, computer crime and criminal attempt to commit theft. White writes, "one quickly realizes that journalism, most especially alternative journalism, entails taking some risks. I don't say that to defend any lack of judgment on my part; it is quite simply a fact." Westword also included a short take on Boulder Weekly and Bannon in its Feb. 2 issue (here, second item).
In an article published Jan. 26, LA Weekly's Matthew Fleisher called into question whether the Navajo memoirist Nasdijj is actually Timothy Barrus, a writer of gay pornographic fiction. The allegations come soon after similar stories about memoirist James Frey and novelist J.T. Leroy. Nasdijj is the author of Geronimo's Bones, The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams, and The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping, which won a PEN/Beyond Margins award for racial and ethnic diversity.
