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I'm trying to parse the following JSON and I keep getting a JsonParseException :

"episodes":{ "description":"Episode 3 – Oprah's Surprise Patrol from 1\/20\/04\nTake a trip down memory lane and hear all your favorite episodes of The Oprah Winfrey Show from the last 25 seasons -- everyday on your radio!"

also fails on this JSON

"episodes":{ "description":"After 20 years in sports talk…he’s still the top dog! Catch Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo weekday afternoons on Mad Dog Radio as he tells it like it is…Give the Doggie a call at 888-623-3646."

Exception:

org.codehaus.jackson.JsonParseException: Invalid UTF-8 start byte 0x96
 at [Source: C:\Json Test Files\episodes.txt; line: 3, column: 33]
    at org.codehaus.jackson.JsonParser._constructError(JsonParser.java:1291)
    at org.codehaus.jackson.impl.JsonParserMinimalBase._reportError(JsonParserMinimalBase.java:385)
    at org.codehaus.jackson.impl.Utf8StreamParser._reportInvalidInitial(Utf8StreamParser.java:2236)
    at org.codehaus.jackson.impl.Utf8StreamParser._reportInvalidChar(Utf8StreamParser.java:2230)
    at org.codehaus.jackson.impl.Utf8StreamParser._finishString2(Utf8StreamParser.java:1467)
    at org.codehaus.jackson.impl.Utf8StreamParser._finishString(Utf8StreamParser.java:1394)
    at org.codehaus.jackson.impl.Utf8StreamParser.getText(Utf8StreamParser.java:113)
    at com.niveus.jackson.Main.parseEpisodes(Main.java:37)
    at com.niveus.jackson.Main.main(Main.java:13)
Code:
    public static void main(String [] args) {
        parseEpisodes("C:\\Json Test Files\\episodes.txt");
    public static void parseEpisodes(String filename) {
        JsonFactory factory = new JsonFactory();
        JsonParser parser = null;
        String nameField = null;
        try {
            parser = factory.createJsonParser(new File(filename));
            parser.configure(JsonParser.Feature.ALLOW_UNQUOTED_CONTROL_CHARS, true);
            parser.configure(JsonParser.Feature.ALLOW_BACKSLASH_ESCAPING_ANY_CHARACTER, true);
            JsonToken token = parser.nextToken();
            nameField = parser.getText();
            String desc = null;
            while (token != JsonToken.END_OBJECT) {
                if (nameField.equals("episodes")) {
                    while (token != JsonToken.END_OBJECT) {
                        if (nameField.equals("description")) {
                            parser.nextToken();
                            desc = parser.getText();
                        token = parser.nextToken();
                        nameField = parser.getText();
                token = parser.nextToken();
                nameField = parser.getText();
            System.out.println(desc);
        } catch (JsonParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
The character at column 33 is –, and the reason this would be the byte 0x96 is that the file is physically encoded as Windows-1252. You need to save the file in UTF-8, windows-1252 is not a valid encoding for json. How to do this depends on what text editor you are using.
See JSON RFC:
  
Encoding
  
JSON text SHALL be encoded in Unicode.  The default encoding is

  UTF-8.
                I download a JSON string response as UTF-8 and write the contents to a .txt file (UTF-8) onto my Android SD storage and then copy that file to my desktop.
– Android Noob
                Dec 11, 2012 at 23:59
                Somewhere in the process, what you believe is UTF-8 is actually Windows-1252.  My guess is the original download is mislabeled.  BTW, 0x96 is the character "en-dash", which is what MS Word uses for a hyphen.   In the second example, the culprit is the ellipsis character, also a MS Word idiosyncrasy.
– Jim Garrison
                Dec 12, 2012 at 0:19
                @AndroidNoob the byte 0x96 will never appear alone in an utf-8 encoded file since it's a continuation byte. Open the file in notepad, press save as, and select UTF-8 from the Encoding menu.
– Esailija
                Dec 12, 2012 at 0:20
I know this question is old, but I would like to share something that works for me. It is possible to ignore the character in the following way.
Define a charset decoded
StandardCharsets.UTF_8.newDecoder().onMalformedInput(CodingErrorAction.IGNORE);
Use to read the InputStream
InputStreamReader stream = new InputStreamReader(resource.getInputStream(), CHARSET_DECODER)
Use the Jackson CSV mapper to read the content
new CsvMapper().readerFor(Map.class).readValues(stream);
The key element here is the charset decoder with the option IGNORE in the malformed input.
        
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