Jugulars, Capillaries, and Canaries

David Giacalone, writing about my post about the Times' typical incompetence, writes:

Mike says the article shows "why blogs were born - because the Times can't get anything right."  That assertion -- along with Mike's conclusion that "There isn't too much [thinking] at the Times" -- shows why weblogs frequently can't be taken very seriously: They're more about the writer's pet peeves and boogeymen than about objective analysis.  They go for the jugular (but hit only capillaries) in order to attack an enemy or nemisis at every opportunity with gross generalities.   

As far as I'm concerned, weblogs were not born to correct minor factual errors that aren't important to the main story being told.  Little old ladies and nitpickers have done that since the first newspaper was published. Let's hope most webloggers have more important things on their mind.

I agree with David that "weblogs were not born to correct minor factual errors that aren't important to the main story being told."  But I do not know everything.  If the Times' error overlaps with something I know, then I'm suspicious.  I think to myself: "I know this is wrong.  What other mistakes have been made?"  It becomes a question of credibility.  A newspaper that I routinely spot making errors cannot be trusted.

As Judge Ralph Adam Fine noted in an online book review:

I was  enjoying Canaries in the Mineshaft until I came to page 127, where Ms. Adler wrote:

"...[Justice] Stone, speaking for a unanimous, far from `liberal' Court in 1938, in footnote 4 of U.S. v. Carolene Products-the most important footnote in American judicial history." Adler apparently did not read the decision.

***

As Adler points out earlier in the book, in connection with an error made by another author, errors cause a reader's faith in the author to "unravel." Here, the error was not caught in 1987, when the article first appeared, or, recently, when Canaries was cobbled together.

Frankly, I stopped reading when I got to page 127 because I could no longer trust anything in the book to be accurate. The canary of truth died.

I, like David, am willing to excuse minor errors.  But when I regularly see errors in areas that fall within my expertise, I have to wonder how many other people are noticing errors.  Or perhaps I should assume that only I  am spotting errors?  That seems more presumptuous than assuming the Times can't be trusted.

Comments

[Eh Nonymous]

More to the point, David intentionally misses one point of blogging: the ability for "little old ladies and nitpickers" such as you and myself to read each others' commentaries, provide evidence, and follow up. This provides a sort of low-cost Maxwell's Demon of information-sorting and valuation. While I can't check every molecule and weigh it (True! False! Indetermine! Unimportant! Mostly true!) I can read blawgs which will let me know if something is

- controversial
- reasoned
- clearly _wrong_ in its reasoning
- and why.

Because as soon as one person posts a really good explanation, someone will see it and want to either post about it, link to it, or pass it on. Thus does good information drive out bad (in theory).

That said, we can always refer David to the New Yorker cartoon about incessant barking.

Skeptic, are we? That's good; I like skepticism.

But blawgs serve a multitude of purposes, error-checking and dissemination of contrary strains of ideas - dissident theories - besides just nitpicking.

[David Giacalone]

Mike and Eh, Of course there are situations where webloggers play an important role in helping to set the record straight and giving alternative or fuller explanations than the one appearing in a newspaper. (Doing just that in the area of legal ethics and consumer rights was exactly my motivation in starting ethicalEsq.) Far from "intentionally missing" that point, my complaint here is that this instance is simply not one of them. My expressed hope was that webloggers have better things to focus on and carp about than a minor detail not material to the point of a story, and have enough objectivity and insight to tell important errors from unimportant ones.

I gave a speech on the importance of skepticism almost 40 years ago, at my high school graduation. One major concern on my mind then was the policy behind the Vietnam War, and whether we were being told the truth by the Administration or the press -- not which color socks Lyndon Johnson wore at his last press conference.

It's virtually impossible to read news reports on any topic and not spot errors, no matter the source. Pointing out unimportant mistakes with great glee and disgust when the source is a hated symbol or your particular bete noire only lessens the impact when the mistake is material and concerns an important issue. If the canary swoons every time someone burps or farts in the mineshaft, you need a new breed of bird.

[mythago]

David also slants his argument by characterizing any errors by the Times as "minor factual errors that aren't important to the main story being told". Thank you, Jayson Blair Fan Club.

[Mike]

David, I've seen much worse mistakes. And their legal analysis is slip-shod at best, and dishonest at work. So my broader point was this: The Times is unreliable, on points big and small. The Jason Blair scandal was a big mistake. The Schaeffer mistake was a small one.

Also, I don't hate the Times. It's generally well-written, and I enjoy good writing - even if it's unreliable.

[Eh Nonymous]

Of course, if an article was about Presidential footwear (an admittedly minor topic) and then flatly got wrong one of the few facts it chose to report (Lyndon Johnson's socks being brown/blue/whatever), we could consistently say that this was an example of a frivolous topic which they _still_ got wrong.

Along similar lines, it peeves me (as it does the folks at Language Log Plaza, see the Language Log) when the X Words for Snow in Eskimo myth comes up... as it always does.

That said, I'm delighted to be called the eh-rascible Eh-man. Fun. I've never had such a cool nickname in real life.

At this point, it's worth it to be anonymous just for the puns - well, that and I fear I'd start getting even more offers from Nigerian bank accounts/ notifications of lottery winnings/ marriage proposals/ summons from state bar authorities asking if I intended to be soliciting clients in Omaha.

Eh N

[Aaron]

The Times is "unreadable" because of its errors? I have seen nothing to suggest that its error rate is higher than that of any other major paper, and my personal impression is that it is probably lower than most. But then, major U.S. dailies are a rather sad lot.

I know that from a moral standpoint, the culpability of a Jayson Blair is ostensibly greater than that of a careless reporter who substitutes "Ohio" for "Illinois". But Blair's sins were on the whole no worse than that error - he lied about going out to investigate his stories, he made up a buch of stupid details while rehashing other people's news coverage, but I'm not aware that he made any misrepresentation more consequential to the ultimate story than the Illinois/Ohio gaffe.

I am rather astonished that the Times didn't have safeguards in place to prevent a Jayson Blair from publishing his works of fiction - if not before Stephen Glass embarrassed The New Republic then certainly afterward. But them, the worst offense of all seems not to be the petty errors of a reporter I've never heard of, or even the fictions of a Glass or Blair, but the willingness of columnists to secretly take payment from organizations and government agencies whose views they publicly advance, and their willingness to champion or serve as conduits for false, misleading or contemptable stories in order to maintain "access" to the very "high level sources" who wish for them peddle those stories. If the sin of error makes a newspaper unreadable, what of the sins of the Robert Novaks, Judith Millers, Maggie Gallaghers, Armstrong Williamses....