18 December 2015

Tear Jerker-in-Chief Michele Mandel...

...demonstrates how little you have to know to be a "professional" journalist...
"The accomplished 40-year-old MBA with an impressive resume in the business world and no previous record."
Not so, says a rival news organisation that apparently still believes in "fact-checking"...
"The life Bisesar lived online was largely a mirage, at least in recent years. Karl Gutowski, who knew Bisesar for eight years said Tuesday she struggled to find work after completing her MBA in 2007. Bisesar, 40, networked hard, he said, but could never land anything for more than a few months at a time."
Perhaps that piece of paper from B-School can get you in the door, but it obviously doesn't guarantee you can do the job.

But there's more to this story. If any one of Bisesar's alleged legion of friends had cared to step in, this whole tragedy might have been prevented.
Gutowski said Bisesar’s successful friends helped her through years of unemployment, letting her sleep on their couches or lending her money.

“She’s been able to sustain herself from a large network of friends,” he said.
Instead of getting Bisesar the help she desperately needed, these friends subsidised this obviously mentally-ill woman, letting her couch-surf and live a fantasy existence for most of the last decade...
"Gutowski said her mental health deteriorated in recent years. She was hospitalized in 2014. She was alienated from her family and she appeared to be increasingly paranoid."
Michele Mandel's theme appears to be, "Who could have seen this coming?"

The answer, sadly, seems to be "a whole lot of people."