News that Financial Times writer Lucy Kellaway made up a letter to her column will surprise those who regarded the FT as one of the few remaining bastions of journalistic integrity.
Kellaway, the newspaper's popular "Agony Aunt", wrote yesterday about a male reader's problem in which the man complained his wife was having an affair with the chief executive of the company where they both worked.
Certainly this was a juicy topic for the FT's highbrow audience and sparked all sorts of City gossip about who could possibly be involved in the moneyed menage a trois.
However, Kellaway has now herself admitted to fabricating the letter, from "Director, male, 50", basing it on a real-life love triangle at insurance giant Aviva.
Her justification: "None of the letters are made up out of the blue, entirely. Seventy-five or 80 per cent of the problems are sent in directly by readers. "The other ones are based loosely on problems that have either happened to my friends or that I know have occurred." Kellaway's confession makes you wonder exactly who her advice - "The first thing to do is get a good lawyer" - was aimed at. I'd also be fascinated to know the identity of "Anon, male" who proffered these words of wisdom to the imaginary cuckold: "Try to look on the bright side, You have managed to offload her cheaply and efficiently - she can't exactly use the "poverty" argument when agreeing the divorce settlement, so you can get to keep the house, the car and even the dog." There has long been speculation that Agony Aunt columns aren't all they are cracked up to be and that perhaps a hard-pressed hack or two might have been press-ganged into action to help beef up the content. (This is certainly something I can confirm knowing of at least one ill-qualified columnist who regularly fabricated reader letters to spice up the normal post bag of tired offerings from the likes of "Depressed of Doncaster" and "Obese of Ormskirk.") However, to think that the FT of all publications is also prepared to engage in such tabloid tactics is certainly an eye-opener. What next, dear Lucy? A Page Three stunner in the Companies & Markets section?
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