For me, writing this book was a chance to stop running away from the truth about myself and to start taking responsibility for my actions and the carnage I left behind that hurt many, many people.
I also wanted to break my own story before anyone else did and do it on my own terms. When you’re covering politics and you’re writing critically about the government, there are people that are gunning for you and are just waiting for the right opening to tear you apart. There were at least half-a-dozen things my critics could have used to take me down and they would have done so by taking everything out of context.
That’s the blood-sport of journalism: We all love to eat our own and watch our colleagues fall. I wasn’t going to allow that to happen to me and that was part of the motivation for writing my book. I wanted to tell my story in context, the way it should be told. I felt empowered when I was through. This was my goal and I feel like I succeeded.
Scott: When did you start writing this book?
Jason: I started writing the book in 2002 and spent a good three years between editing and final draft
Scott: What has been the reaction to the book? Has there been good that come of it? Has there been fall-out?
Jason: The response has been incredibly positive. People have said that my brutal honesty is something they respected and I am grateful for that. We live in a culture of lies right now. You see it everyday not just with our government but in every facet of our popular culture so to tell the truth and to do it in such a brutal way has been something that the general public perhaps did not expect when picking up my book.
Scott: What did you think of the “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” movie?
Jason: I was actually one of the consultants on the Enron documentary so my response will be somewhat biased. I think the movie is a spectacular look at how greed can turn people into criminals. The movie sheds light on how Enron played a major role in the California energy crisis and supports many of the allegations former Gov. Gray Davis had leveled against the company in the early days of the crisis, long before Enron was found to have played a role in the crisis.
Scott: I’m a bit dismayed by something you wrote and I want to ask you to elaborate on it. It concerns the way in which you got your “scoops” on Enron – by having sources tip you off on what other reporters were working on. You write what, no offense, seems like a cheap rationalization to me:
“A scoop is a scoop. In my opinion, as long as you are the first one who reports the news, you own the story. It doesn’t really matter how you get it. Other journalists will whine about ethics, but that’s a load of crap. If reporting a huge story required journalists to pimp their mothers, there would be a lot of elderly hookers on the street.”
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