The fraud that was "Sybil"

Who hasn't read or heard of "Sybil"? When I was in college back in Mumbai (this was in the late Seventies), the book had many avid fans who were apparently fascinated by this harrowing story of a young woman with 16 — that's right, 16 — different personalities.

There was also a 1976 drama film, based on the book, which starred Sally Field as "Sybil". It was aired that year as a made-for-television miniseries.

And there was a remake in 2007.


Two years later, in September 2009, Commitscion Madhura Chakravarty wrote a feature about the book in the college newspaper (see below).

Under the rubric "Books You Should've Read", Madhura discussed a few aspects of the book that made it a compelling read. "Sybil's ... dismantled identity is a result of severe mental and child sexual abuse by her schizophrenic mother," Madhura wrote. "... her narrow-minded, bigoted, religious family won't let her see a doctor."

And then Madhura paid tribute to author Flora Rheta Schreiber's skill in narrating Sybil's story: "...it is Schreiber's gripping style of narrative, complex plot, and exploration of human vulnerability that makes this book such a compelling read."

Little did Madhura, or I or anyone else for that matter, know that the whole "Sybil" tale was an elaborate fraud committed by three women: the psychiatrist who was treating "Sybil, "Sybil" herself, and a writer who appeared to be only too willing to believe everything she was told by the duo.

I was stunned at what I discovered in Sybil Exposed. If you have read or heard of "Sybil", you will be aghast, too.

• Want to know more? Read "Memory, lies and therapy (How three women fabricated the most famous case of multiple personality disorder and damaged thousands of lives)" by Laura Miller on Salon.

How many magazines in India will let reporters work on a story for six months?

I can't think of any. Except perhaps for Tehelka, whose editor Tarun Tejpal in 2007 asked his reporter Ashish Khetan to conduct a months-long undercover investigation into the Godhra killings. But among Indian publications Tehelka is unique, as we all know, and it is the exception to many rules.

In the West, on the other hand, many magazines specialise in long-form stories that can take the writers weeks, if not months, to put together.

The latest issue (February 7) of Fortune has one such article — an investigation into the BP oil rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico last April. The magazine's managing editor, Andy Serwer, writes in this issue that two reporters and a researcher "spent six months interviewing scores of interested parties and travelling across the U.S. and to London to interview, among others, three BP CEOs, current and former, including an unrepentant Tony Hayward and his predecessor, the architect of the modern BP, John Browne".

Serwer also explains why Fortune took up this mammoth investigation:

To do the biggest business stories right requires a significant investment of time and effort. It's an investment that frankly is becoming rare these days, but to me and the rest of us at Fortune it's a risk well worth taking if executed properly. The payoff — a long-form magazine story that provides understanding well beyond the daily ticktock — has almost unquantifiable value. As in, "Ah, I finally get what happened." How much is that worth?

And what do readers actually get? Back to Serwer:

The result is a rich, highly engaging tale told here in this issue — all 10,500-odd words of it — that gives a holistic picture of BP and what led up to the disaster in an analytical and cinematic fashion.

Six months. 10,500-odd words. Again my question: Which Indian magazine will permit its reporters to spend six months for a 10,500-word story?

• PS: The BP story is not up yet on the Fortune website because this issue is still on the stands. Check back later and read "BP: 'An accident waiting to happen'."
• Commitscion Noyon Jyoti Parasara (Class of 2007) has sent me the link to another fascinating example of long-form investigative journalism on the ProPublica website: "Pakistan and the Mumbai attacks: The untold story". (For the uninitiated, ProPublica is probably the most well-known media outlet for public interest journalism.)