Posted by Carolyn on April 17, 2002 at 20:54:25:
In Reply to: Robin Hatcher - to set the record straight.... posted by Lori Foster on April 17, 2002 at 06:19:28:
: But the thing is, I'm 43. In maturing I learned a few things along the way - like not to jump the gun, not to believe everything I read, not to join in on negativity before I had all the facts... and to give people the benefit of the doubt because most of them are just like me - a nice person who is trying to do the best she can.
I'm 42. I find your above comment patronizing. But since you brought up what we've learned, I've learned there's a balance between not "jumping the gun" and in having to do someone else's fact-gathering work for them, especially on the kind of scale you imply--a scale including everything ever printed, therefore a scale I find to be quite impossibly unreasonable, which is partly why there are conventions of journalistic professionalism to begin with. Otherwise who would bother to read anything in the news, if at the end of the day one would have to gather all the information all over again? If your view holds, it would be easier to research everything for myself up front, and bypass the mainly untrustworthy journalistic media altogether. I'll go over to Afghanistan and fact-gather for myself, shall I? I'll go run down and personally question Nora Roberts or Linda Howard or John Updike or President Bush. I'm sure they'll be happy to cooperate with everyone, everywhere, everytime, so we can personally investigate the facts. Excuse the hyperbole, but, really.
I disagree that initially taking the majority of the facts in any given article in print at face value is bad, and thus that not agreeing with an author as quoted is "jumping the gun." If you're saying I'm to assume everything I read in print very likely might be wrong, then I feel you're trying to shift the balance too far to suit your argument. While I do, in fact, keep in mind the limitations and biases in our media when I read, and often try to cross-check news outlets with one another, etc, I still disagree strongly that it's my responsiblity to do whatever I have to do to auto-correct *up front* for all possible faults of the professionals on both sides. My "grain of salt" I keep in mind--and I did keep one---might extend as far as one or two quotes or statements I found odd in any given article. But at some point, when the mass of it is in a certain direction, I give considered weight to that.
Besides, why should the author be the only recipient of benefit of the doubt? I don't think it's a crime to begin by giving reasonable benefit of the doubt to the medium. The base assumption for me concerning newspaper articles in papers having not otherwise proved themselves unreliable (i.e tabloids), is I presume them to be following the tenets of responsible journalism until proven otherwise.
This begs the question: whose job is it to prove irresponsible journalism? If the case here is that the journalist was irresponsible, then I'm very sorry for the author, but I still have to look to the checks and balances in the system. I reject the position that it is the reader who must bear the main burdern for being the primary check. I hold the professionals on both sides to their responsibility. As a pro, did the author bear no responsibilty to do "some further investitating" of the journalist or paper beforehand? Does she not have the freedom to pick and choose which interviews she does, for what papers? If there is a need for investigating, I'd contend the producers--both newspaper/journalist and interviewed author---rather than the consumers bear the main burden for it, and for a faulty product if it's not done properly. As a consumer, as far as my own *job* goes, I'm fully prepared to read a retraction and to assign to it the same innocent-until-proven guilty assumptions of face value I gave to the original medium and to the original article. If, at the get-go, you tar everything with the brush of 'each work found in newsprint must automatically be considered suspect in a majority of it's facts, statements, and quotes' then you've also tarred any printed counter-claims and retractions in those same media.
To play devil's advocate, if you give people the benefit of the doubt, then why is the journalist exempt from such a benefit when first reading the article? Perhaps a journalist is also a nice person doing the best he or she can, *how should I know?* Which is my point---best of intentions are not the reader's responsiblity to spend time and resources working out. An interview is a professional function for the journalist AND for the author, one where it shouldn't be expected that the onus fall on the reader to know enough facts and background *of either professional* in order to discern who should be taken at face value. I can't know everything about everyone in print, either journalist or subject, and I don't have the time or the inclination to spend my life doing so. Yes, here some people already happened to know the background of the author. That's an exception, given the overall readership of a paper. Good for them, but because I or others did not is not a moral failing. Also, I don't consider everything about background relevant; why should charity endeavors, or how well they might tip a waitress, or how mannerly they are in private or on social occasions automatically mitigate mistakes they might make on the job? I speak here of both journalist and author.
: I'm so glad I did some further investigating. It was more time consuming than joining the crowd, but the right thing isn't always the easiest to do.
I find this statement blythe, smug, and morally superior in tone. I joined no crowd, but gave my individual opinion. I was not swayed by other opinions, so I rather resent the patronizing. That others might concurrently give similar opinions does not make mine or another individual's any less valid pe se. You seem to consider the issue is resolved, and the journalist has been proved wrong in this non-professional venue of the message boards, therefore the crowd (such a nice word choice, with connotations of the mob mentality) is wrong. Since the intital article was in print and covered by journalistic standards, I will wait until the retraction is printed. When one is, I would not hesitate to write the editor expressing my dismay with the errors. Were I a subscriber I'd tell him I'd cancel my subscription if I read any more examples of shoddy journalism, and that I was encouraging other subscribers to do the same. But at some point authors must be seen as grown-up professionals who do assume a certain amount of risk every time they do their chosen jobs when they give interviews. It is not a moral failing if I don't agree that it's not my job to protect them from all such risks. Does that mean I wouldn't have sympathy if such was the case? No, it does not.
Do I think a few here who disagreed with the author *as quoted* in the article did so in a poor way? Yes, but I don't see how a few make the others automatically suspect, just as I didn't assume one particularly harsh supporter spoke for everyone else who believed the author was massively misquoted and miscontextualized. Nor do I assume because journalism has people who err that all of journalism is suspect off the bat and therefore it's only morally right that I have to do all the fact-digging myself. I find your implications offensive and, frankly, rather cliched attempts to discredit those who disagree by lumping everyone under the label "crowd." I disagree strongly with you that your "further investigating" was a morally correct stand and by implication mine is not. I would note you have offered up no credentials as a journalist, and thus any reporting of facts you gathered from your "investigation" (have you heard the journalist's side? Have you spoken to the editor? Have you heard any tape recordings of the interview?)--that facts unearthed in your investigation could not be held accoutable under the same standards of journalistic responsiblity I'll hold the working journalist to.
Further, I don't much care for your implication of laziness in the words "time-consuming"; as I said, it's not my job. I'm not being paid to know everything about everyone, and if I were, and even if I felt all elements of background information pertinent, it would still be impossible to do so in any case; the scale of it would be too enormous. One reason is because I wouldn't feel it moral to limit myself to only investigating the truth in articles about people in fields I liked (e.g. the romance genre); I'd have to investigate the same for for every single article I read on any subject, and I'd feel a responsibility to do it thoroughly. In other words, I'd end up assuming the role of a journalist, though unpaid, untaught, and uncredentialed. How could I trust myself? I didn't and can't reasonably be expected to go to journalism school to learn the skills. As an amateur, I would likely make grevious mistakes. It would also take up more time that I would *possibly* be able to commit to--the description "time-consuming" is therefore the grossest of understatements. Which is why there is a whole industry for journalism, and why there are standards for journalism and checks and balances for it to begin with. We subscribe to newspapers because we can't all be everything. We pay others to be those things, and then hold them accountable.
: Before Laurie posted that thread, it would have been nice and certainly it would have been professional if she'd touched base with Robin too. ::shrug::: Might not caused so much hoopla though...
: Lori
Again, why should she have "touched base"? Touching base is something friends do to maintain social contact, but this wasn't a social occasion. I doubt being friends with all the authors is something LLB would go out of her way to do, given she has set up a site which has as one of it's main purposes the unbiased reviewing of their books; the two objectives would conflict. This wasn't set up as a debate. It was an article. She brought a print article on the subject of romance to the attention of the readers of a romance site. And, for the same reasons I discussed above, why shouldn't she assume the basic integrity of a journalist in the beginning? Should she notify every author in every interview, lest in one case it was all wrong? Why shouldn't she initally assume if an author gave a public interview then she took care and deliberation while doing it, and it was for public consumption? Your cliched implications that Laurie's motives are self-serving and she brought up the article only to cause a "hoopla" are, to me, offensive. Yes, I don't doubt she's experienced enough to realize it would raise heated discussion. But was it her place to prejudge the gamut and degree of possible reactions and decide which she thought might be appropriate? I think she followed one of the site's purposes and notified us of a relevant article of possible interest to romance readers and left our reactions up to us. She's not responsible for what we choose to think---choose to think as individuals, I might add, not always as part of a crowd as you said.
Carolyn
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