Michael Moynihan Character Analysis

Michael Moynihan is a New York-based writer and journalist. His 2012 article in Tablet magazine about Jonah Lehrer’s plagiarism in his book Imagine: How Creativity Works led to Lehrer’s intense, merciless online public shaming. At the time, Moynihan was a struggling blogger who needed a scoop when he found himself questioning the veracity of certain quotations in a pivotal section of Lehrer’s book centered around musician Bob Dylan. Moynihan’s fact-checking led him to discover that Lehrer had embellished the wording of several Dylan quotes. Moynihan described himself to Jon Ronson as a “schlub” who was just doing his job. He claimed to feel bad about doing journalism that could hurt Lehrer’s career—until he realized that Lehrer, a well-to-do former Rhodes scholar, lived in a two-million-dollar home in Los Angeles. Moynihan expresses no pride about his role in Lehrer’s public shaming, but he believes that shaming a transgressor or wrongdoer is sometimes necessary.