Saturday, May 6, 2006
accuracy
The always interesting devradowrite had a blog birthday recently - happy day for us all and happy blogiversary to her! She has been discussing accuracy in reporting and writing (one piece is here), partly because of major inaccuracies in an article about her husband, John Levy*, which prompted me to think and write about the same subject.
The internet is undeniably a welcome and awesome tool that allows us to learn far more than we otherwise might, and to get it right at our fingertips. But it also can perpetuate mistakes logaritmically with no way of correcting them. When my father died, for example, an online columnist referred to him as Arturo Toscanini's son, and there is a connection in that my father's father was Toscanini's highly regarded concertmaster. But we are not related. I wrote an email to the author but never received a reply. And a few weeks ago I found more references to my father being the son of Toscanini. Yes, it's multiplying and one day perhaps will simply be "fact". Annoying, amusing, irrelevant in many ways, but not a good thing. I have no idea what the solution is, but the perpetuation of errors will become a serious threat to accuracy and truth as time goes on.
Devradowrite attributes the problem to journalists' inexperience and youth. I don't think that's it, unless one assumes all inexperienced and/or young people are irresponsible and lazy because I think irresponsibility and laziness are the core problems. Lazy research means if you see something once, you accept it without question. Irresponsible journalism means you don't check and double- and triple-check (all that time and effort). Sure, inexperience may play a part because it takes experience to develop instinct for what's what (the proverbial "nose"), but stories about John Hall or my father wouldn't necessarily tap into anything instinctive anyway. Importantly, behind all this is horribly bad training in school and at the papers or wherever the people work, plus lots of sloppiness and laziness. I almost wish it were simply that young people are sloppy and lazy, because then we could only read writers who are over 45. In fact, of course, many young writers are wonderful and responsible, and some are not, just like us old folks.
*Ironically, I originally called DDW's husband "John Hall" whereas he is actually jazz bassist-turned talent manager John Levy and her father is jazz guitarist Jim Hall. Apologies extended and corrections made.
The internet is undeniably a welcome and awesome tool that allows us to learn far more than we otherwise might, and to get it right at our fingertips. But it also can perpetuate mistakes logaritmically with no way of correcting them. When my father died, for example, an online columnist referred to him as Arturo Toscanini's son, and there is a connection in that my father's father was Toscanini's highly regarded concertmaster. But we are not related. I wrote an email to the author but never received a reply. And a few weeks ago I found more references to my father being the son of Toscanini. Yes, it's multiplying and one day perhaps will simply be "fact". Annoying, amusing, irrelevant in many ways, but not a good thing. I have no idea what the solution is, but the perpetuation of errors will become a serious threat to accuracy and truth as time goes on.
Devradowrite attributes the problem to journalists' inexperience and youth. I don't think that's it, unless one assumes all inexperienced and/or young people are irresponsible and lazy because I think irresponsibility and laziness are the core problems. Lazy research means if you see something once, you accept it without question. Irresponsible journalism means you don't check and double- and triple-check (all that time and effort). Sure, inexperience may play a part because it takes experience to develop instinct for what's what (the proverbial "nose"), but stories about John Hall or my father wouldn't necessarily tap into anything instinctive anyway. Importantly, behind all this is horribly bad training in school and at the papers or wherever the people work, plus lots of sloppiness and laziness. I almost wish it were simply that young people are sloppy and lazy, because then we could only read writers who are over 45. In fact, of course, many young writers are wonderful and responsible, and some are not, just like us old folks.
*Ironically, I originally called DDW's husband "John Hall" whereas he is actually jazz bassist-turned talent manager John Levy and her father is jazz guitarist Jim Hall. Apologies extended and corrections made.
Labels: blogs (others'), modern culture
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