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by Stephen Kiesling (Author)
Walking the Plank is the updated true adventure of a journalist learning to swim in our sea of fake news. It's about a year with treasure hunter Barry Clifford and his many discoveries of the 1717 pirate ship Whydah-a wreck that wasn't actually missing. it's also about a "Media Plan"-written by the president of Random House and two Wall Street moguls-that put Clifford on the cover of Parade as "The Man Who Found a $400 Million Pirate Treasure!" and set up front-page stories in the New York Times heralding a treasure worth hundreds of millions. Ultimately, the Media Plan led to a CBS News Special in which Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, announced "tons of gold" as well as a $6 million stock offering to excavate the motherlode. A book about Clifford and the Whydah was also part of the Media Plan. Author Stephen Kiesling wasn't willing to lie. A journalist trained by a World War II artillery scout, Kiesling ultimately found the real secret of the Whydah treasure hidden in the pirate's stove: an iron rotisserie discovered by Clifford in 1984, 1985, 1988, 2007, and finally displayed in a museum in 2016. The stove-found in the middle of the "motherlode"- was already famous because Henry David Thoreau wrote about it sticking out the waves. The LA Times calls Walking the Plank "hilarious...why they don't call it 'fool's gold' for nothing." The Boston Globe says it's "a scathing critique of how Barry Clifford financed and documented the underwater excavation of the pirate ship Whydah off Cape Cod." Archaeology magazine says Walking the Plank is "highly recommended," and Antiquities says it's "required reading." Stephen Kiesling has written for the New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, and Outside and is the author of The Shell Game: Reflections on Rowing and the Pursuit of Excellence. The New York Times Book Review calls Kiesling "true blue." He is editor in chief of the FOLIO award-winning magazine Spirituality & Health.
