Newsweek took its best shot this week at potential Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, claiming falsely that the Catholic judge’s hometown religious association is the inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. This is not true.
Rather than retract the erroneous article, Newsweek believes a mere correction will do. It will not.
“How Amy Coney Barrett’s People of Praise group inspired ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’” said the first iteration of the story’s headline. The headline now reads, “How Charismatic Catholic Groups Like Amy Coney Barrett’s People of Praise Inspired ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’”
The report also bears a humiliating and flawed editor’s note, which reads:
Amazingly, even Newsweek’s “correction” contains misleading and false statements.
First, the 2017 New Yorker profile never once mentions People of hope by name.
Second, from the New Yorker, the newspaper clipping with the word “handmaidens” underlined comes from an October 1985 Associated Press report, according to NJ.com. By then, Atwood’s book had already been published, NJ.com reports, adding that it “was reviewed twice in the New York Times, in late 1985 and early 1986, on its way to becoming a bestseller.” Atwood may have added the Associated Press story to her research files after her first book published, but it clearly did not inspire the series, though the New Yorker article suggests otherwise.
Newsweek’s report has been amended significantly since publication. But even the revisions cannot save it. It stated originally:
Atwood herself has indicated that the group’s existence motivated her to write The Handmaid’s Tale, set in the fictional Gilead, where women’s bodies are governed and treated as the property of the state under a theocratic regime.
The latter paragraph now reads:
The revised version also includes a passage in which its author tries none-too-subtly to defend the article’s original falsehood:
The clipping includes a spokesperson for the People of Hope sect based in Newark, New Jersey saying, “We’re all Roman Catholics. We differ in the sense that we are a Charismatic group, which would mean that we have prayer meetings, during which there is raising of hands, singing and speaking in tongues.”
People of Praise has never had a presence in the state of New Jersey.
People of Praise, People of Hope. Tomato, tamahto. You people all look the same. Also, as mentioned above, the Associated Press did not report on People of Hope until Atwood’s book had already been published. Newsweek managed to screw up the original story, the editor’s note, and even the freshly added paragraphs. Yet it refuses to retract the article.
As indefensible as Newsweek’s refusal to pull the story, which relies now on outright falsehoods and lurid innuendo, is the fact that the magazine is still promoting the initial lie on social media:
How Amy Coney Barrett’s People of Praise group inspired ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ https://t.co/OxxMXJaq8t
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) September 21, 2020
Naturally, the original version of the erroneous Newsweek report is being treated as canon by anti-President Trump “resistance” types. They claim the since-corrected article is proof that the White House intends to put on the Supreme Court a woman whose religious affiliation literally inspired The Handmaid’s Tale.
Oh look, her fucking cult literally fucking inspired the Handmaids Tale. Cool. This is cool. https://t.co/SsFxGrUG5I
— Lauren Hough (@laurenthehough) September 21, 2020
You were warned this week that the anti-Catholic zealotry would increase in pitch and fervor the closer Barrett gets to the Supreme Court. Expect things to become much worse as the week goes on.
