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Chameleon

The Journalist And The Voyeur: It’s Not So Easy When You’re The One Being Watched

4/23/202645 min

Gay Talese thought he’d landed a once-in-a-lifetime story every journalist dreams about: a motel owner who built a hidden viewing platform so he could watch guests in their most private moments and kept meticulous “research” notes for decades. But when Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi starts pulling at the threads, the story begins to unravel into something messy. A source who can’t stop exaggerating, and journalist who may have wanted to believe a little too much.

Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.

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Clips

Talese Disowns His Own Book
The Murder That Wasn't
Finding The Real Murder
Did Talese Cross A Line?
Talese Admits Single-Source Risks
Foos Wasn’t A Researcher
Wanting The Story To Be True
Why He Didn’t Call Police
Calling Out A Legend
Talese’s Defiant Last Word

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Yvette Gentile0:00

    [mysterious music] Every mystery has an answer, but some have way more than one possibility. I'm Yvette Gentile.

  2. Rosha Pecoraro0:08

    And I'm her sister, Rosha Pecoraro. Every week on our podcast, So Supernatural, we invite you to explore the unknown and to consider the many theories behind each unsolved mystery.

  3. Yvette Gentile0:21

    We'll guide you as you question the world you think you know through investigations into spine-chilling hauntings, unexplainable encounters, strange disappearances, and so much more.

  4. Rosha Pecoraro0:35

    So, if you're ready to be haunted by stories of the unsolved and of the unknown, listen, if you dare, to So Supernatural, every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.

  5. Speaker 20:47

    [crickets chirping] Campsite Media.

  6. Speaker 30:51

    Hello?

  7. Speaker 20:54

    What is this? So, what do you want me to say?

  8. Speaker 30:56

    Yeah, what's going on here?

  9. Speaker 20:57

    Um, it's just, um- Chameleon.

  10. Speaker 31:00

    Chameleon.

  11. Speaker 21:01

    Chameleon. Chameleon Weekly. Oh.

  12. Speaker 41:02

    [laughs] [beep] A lot of reporters think, you know, when they leave the story, it, it's all over. Sometimes it's just beginning.

  13. Josh Dean· Host1:11

    Gay Talese is one of the most famous narrative journalists of all time, and he was well into the twilight of an illustrious career when he turned his attention to a whale of a story, his white whale of a story, one he'd been chasing for a good chunk of his career. It would start with a feature in The New Yorker,

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