In the book publishing, self publishing and journalistic worlds, I see the haste to write joining forces with a rush to BE right. Alas the ugly child of that union is too often the inadvertent perpetuation of falsehoods or at least misinformation. In other words, people write stuff they don’t thoroughly research, and that stuff gets re-written and promoted by people whose passions are inflamed either by the inaccurate facts or their own eagerness to spread one side of a story. Or eagerness to appear informed. Or eagerness to get finished.
I’m as guilty as anyone; I’ve tweeted links to articles I haven’t myself read because the topic sounds both interesting to others and the tweet itself, I think, reflects well on me. But I’ll ignore that moral failing and try to do better while I take up the banner in support of better-researched journalistic endeavors, either by blog or by traditional media.
Inaccurate and incomplete reporting is nothing new–but as today I saw BOTH the standard bearers The New York Times and the National Book Awards called to task for mistakes and ommissions, I feel compelled to do what little I can to add fact to the frenzy from time to time.
So I will. Watch for more entries under the category of Rants and Raves and please feel free to contribute your own blogs and comments if you’re aware of an editorial wrong that needs righting. Or writing.
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