Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Jonah Lehrer Quits Over Fake Dylan Quotes

Jonah Lehrer, a staff writer for The New Yorker, resigned hours after Tablet Magazine published an article revealing that he had fabricated Bob Dylan quotes in a recent book.

“This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic,” Lehrer, 27, said in a statement Monday announcing his resignation.

Three weeks ago Michael Moynihan, author of the Tablet article, first pressed Lehrer about quotes attributed to Dylan in Lehrer’s book “Imagine.” Lehrer, a neuroscience and psychology writer, initially claimed he had obtained certain quotes after gaining access to material provided by Dylan’s manager, Jeff Rosen.

On Sunday, according to Moynihan, Lehrer admitted that he had never made contact with Rosen.

“When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie and say things I should not have said,” Lehrer said before apologizing to readers and editors.

The scandal comes six weeks after Lehrer was accused of “self-plagiarism” for recycling material from a Wall Street Journal article in his debut post for The New Yorker’s The Frontal Cortex blog.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.