School for Scandal

If the "high profile" aspect of Plan B falls through--and it looks as if it might (nothing like a few more dips in the roller coaster), then my sister suggested the tried and true "scandal" approach.

"Can't you find a scoop? Some kind of conspiracy or foul play that no one knew about?" she asked me. "That would sell in a second."

In other words, the tabloid approach which, it seems, no one is above. When Vanity Fair published Buzz Bissinger's article on Barbaro in August it touted "exclusive excerpts from Gretchen Jackson's diaries" on the cover even though she never gave those diaries to Bissinger and only read him brief entries (which she has also done for me, by the way).

The problem is that even if there is a scandal, unless I had undeniable truth of its existence, I would be extremely loathe to go on the record about it and even more importantly, no publisher is going to touch it because of liability issues. There was an entry on a media blog yesterday about a recently published book that actually lifted 6 paragraphs verbatim from Wikipedia (can you say major lawsuit?) and we all know about the James Frey fiasco (his memoir was in fact fiction). There is so much plagiarism and fictionalizing going on, that fact checkers are working overtime. Not to mention, there is the believability factor. Who am I to expose the big bad guys--assuming there even is such a thing. I haven;t exactly made a career out of investigative journalism.

The veterinary community and the racing community closed ranks incredibly tightly almost instantaneously after the Barbaro incident and if there is any scandal, I doubt anyone will ever find it. If anything, the story is just that they protect their own.

So we're back to the lack of high profile, which may prove a detriment to the fate of this proposal. At this point, I'm hoping that turning the concept of "too late"' on its head and making it an advantage rather than a disadvantage may help to break the "dam."

We'll see.