So Called Professionals
This is kind of amazing. The New York Times has a review of a new book by Jonah Goldberg, and in the review, the topic of the National Recovery Administration (a Depression Era Federal Agency) came up. How well did the editors and fact checkers at the Times do? Well, the link for the N.R.A. they used goes to information on the National Rifle Association. That's the kind of error that would get seriously dinged in a high school level paper (my 11th grade teacher certainly would have noticed).
Explain to me again why I should trust a source like the Times more than, say, an arbitrary blogger?
Technorati Tags: news
Comments
one good reason
[Troy Brumley] December 29, 2007 21:38:00.000
Jim, one good reason I think you can consider trusting the mass media such as the NY Times, WSJ, etc., is precisely what just happened here. The mass media are more visible and more likely to be fact checked than some arbitrary blogger, and they are more likely to respond to fact finding criticism.
Another important question might be how close to perfection can we expect the mass media to be. Heck we all post incorrect links from time to time, as a search of comments on our blogs will reveal :)
Re: So Called Professionals
[ James Robertson] December 29, 2007 21:53:59.000
And yet, I correct mistakes as soon as people mention them. That review has been there, uncorrected, for hours. Color me unimpressed.
test
[Troy Brumley] December 29, 2007 22:02:52.109
just a test comment
ok to delete