The Manor Motel owner, Mr. Gerald Foos, is an irresponsible creep who is only concerned satisfying his twisted appetites and about his own well being. He bought a motel for the express purpose of violating the privacy of his motel guests, specifically of watching their sexual habits and activities. He admits that he is a "peeping tom", though he says he prefers the term voyeur. He said that he witnessed many couples arguing and fighting, which is of course not surprising. This bothered him. Foos said he didn't approve of them behaving that way! Are we supposed to give him a pass for his sick and twisted voyeurism because he disapproves of people who become angry and argue with each other?

Foos tells another story about a couple staying at his motel. He said the man was a drug dealer who sold drugs to children and that this bothered him so much that he entered the room when the couple was out, took the cache of drugs and disposed of them. When the man returned to the room and discovered that his drugs were gone he assumed that his girlfriend was guilty of stealing them. Foos says he witnessed the man choking his girlfriend, but that he didn't kill her at that moment. She was lying on the floor and he could see her chest rising and falling, still breathing. Foos says he was upset at what he had seen and quit watching for that evening. The next morning he said the maid discovered the dead body of the girlfriend in the motel room. Is this all true? When Gay Talese had the story investigated he discovered that there was a female body found at a different motel during that time period, not at the Manor Motel. So...did Mr. Foos decide to lie about this in order to make his story more interesting? I have a hard time believing that the police would have gotten the name of the motel wrong in their report. Foos also told Talese he bought the motel in 1966. But the records indicate he bought it in 1969. Yet his "research" notebook detailing his observations of the people he spied upon has entries beginning in 1966.

There is agreement that Foos approached Talese about selling the story of his voyeurism. He worked with Talese through the years on this story. But after the story hit the New Yorker magazine Foos became upset because of the public's negative reaction to the story. How could he not have known there would be a negative public reaction to the revelation that this man spied on his motel guests having sex throughout the 30 years he owned the motel?

He lied to Talese by saying he owned the motel all those years, leaving out the fact that he sold it to another guy in 1981. This was only discovered after the book was published, severely damaging Talese's reputation as a journalist. He didn't fact check everything. The purchase date discrepancy should have cause him to check every record he could get his hands on, but he failed to do so. He was 80 years old when he was sending the book to the publisher. Perhaps his age accounts for that oversight to some degree. In any case his reputation was damaged through his dealings with Foos.

I think Talese was so committed to the story that he lost his objectivity. He had talked to this guy about the story for at least 20 years, probably more, about his voyeurism at his motel. He'd had this story on the back burner all those years, waiting until such time as Foos would give the OK to go ahead with it. So each time an apparent discrepancy arose, Talese found a way to rationalize it away. He blinded himself to the fact that Foos was a dishonest man who was willing to lie in order to make his story more salacious and therefore marketable. Was he subconsciously afraid that all his work on this story might come to nothing? He became Foos's apologist to some degree. He accepted the flimsy excuse Foos gave for giving the wrong purchase date for the motel. Foos's notebook contained notes from 1966 forward, yet records show he only purchased the property in 1969 so could not have been taking notes during the preceding three years. Did Foos make up the notes for those years? Was he confused about the date for three whole years? Foos offered a short explanation which is both insufficient and incredible. He said well maybe he got the numbers 6 and 9 wrong somehow, or maybe the real estate records had the date written incorrectly. There would be an easy way to check on that. Did Foos pay taxes on the property for the three years in question? If not then he either created fake entries for those three years or he was mistaken about the year for three years in his entry log. The most credible explanation is that Foos created fake entries for the first three years of his notes. Talese should have thoroughly investigated all aspects of this part of the story as soon as he learned of the date discrepancy.
And when police records failed to support the story Foos told about the murder of the young woman in his motel, it should have been enough for Talese to question everything Foos told him. Police did find a murdered woman in a motel room in Aurora, CO during that the time period in question. Did Foos think to himself "people might remember the story of the murdered woman found in a motel, but they won't be sure which motel it was. I can say it happened here and say I witnessed the beginning of the altercation which resulted in her death. That will add some punch to my book and boost sales." People who lie can often convince themselves that their bullshit will fly, that people will buy their stories.
Another reporter checked the police records and alerted Talese to this discrepancy between police records and Foos's story.

Gay Talese could still have gone forward with the book, but he would have had to have peppered it with caveat emptor warnings. The fact that Talese had seen the "viewing platforms" Foos had built in the motel attic over each room was solid evidence that Foos did actually watch the motel guests surreptitiously. Talese had personally witnessed this. So he could attest that Foos had in fact modified his motel to accomodate his peeping Tom activity. But the glaring inconsistencies of Foos story should have made Talese question everything Foos every told him. The fact that he didn't raises serious questions about his objectivity as a journalist.