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Discussion Groups / English Usage / May 2009Wikipedia redux
Further to recent discussions here, the column by the Reader's Editor in today's Guardian, about Maurice Jarre's obituary, offers a salutary lesson in the use of Wikipedia. http://tinyurl.com/djqd8w or http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/04/journalism-obituaries-shane- fitzgerald  SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) > Further to recent discussions here, the column by the Reader's Editor in > today's Guardian, about Maurice Jarre's obituary, offers a salutary lesson > in the use of Wikipedia. > > http://tinyurl.com/djqd8w It's noteworthy that the Guardian lady does not apologise for the newspaper's error, laziness, incompetence ... whatever; instead, she shifts the entire blame onto the person who introduced the unsourced material. pe On May 4, 4:37 am, "Philip Eden" <philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom> wrote: > > Further to recent discussions here, the column by the Reader's Editor in > > today's Guardian, about Maurice Jarre's obituary, offers a salutary lesson [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > instead, she shifts the entire blame onto the person who > introduced the unsourced material. She says, "The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source. "The desirability of telling readers where information comes from shouldn't be overlooked either. The Guardian's editorial code advises that when quotes are taken from another publication, journalists should acknowledge the source. The guidance is less strictly adhered to in obituaries, features and blogs than it is in news stories, and it wasn't followed here. If it had been, editors would soon have discovered a problem with the quote." This isn't an apology, and I'd say it's not as direct (or as well written) as it should have been, but it does look to me like taking some blame. -- Jerry Friedman > On May 4, 4:37 am, "Philip Eden" <philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > written) as it should have been, but it does look to me like taking > some blame. The Reader's Editor column is an interesting feature. The Guardian was the first to establish such a thing and this woman's predecessor (whose name currently escapes me although I had some correspondence with him) had a slightly different tone in dealing with problematic issues, a little more apologetic when the need arose, IMO. She seems to me to set out the house rules rather than take any emotional or moral stance but I imagine that a fine line must be trodden to avoid potential litigation. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) On 04 May 2009, LFS wrote > The Reader's Editor column is an interesting feature. The > Guardian was the first to establish such a thing and this [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > imagine that a fine line must be trodden to avoid potential > litigation. My feeling is that she's altered the primary role of Reader's Editor from "adjudicating between readers and journalists" to "explaining to readers how journalism works". A good case in point was a complaint some time back about a misleading headline quotation -- something in quotation marks, attributed to a speaker, which was a paraphrase that substantially hardened the tone of what had been said. Her explanation/adjudication/whatever came down to telling the readers that they should understand that it is a journalistic convention that quotation marks in headlines aren't verbatim quotes. Which not only failed to address the complaint, but in my mind was *way* too satisfied with a convention that allows headline writers to misrepresent paraphrases as quotations. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >On 04 May 2009, LFS wrote > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] >*way* too satisfied with a convention that allows headline writers to >misrepresent paraphrases as quotations. The use of quotes in this way is one of my pet aversions. What seems to be intended by them is "We do not take any responsibility for these words". I'm sure that the average newspaper reader has no idea of the significance of this convention, and I don't see any reason why they should have. I have been hoping for ages that some particularly egregious example would lead to a libel judgment, which would stop the whole thing in its tracks. SignatureDon Aitken Mail to the From: address is not read. To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" (...) > Her explanation/adjudication/whatever came down to telling the > readers that they should understand that it is a journalistic > convention that quotation marks in headlines aren't verbatim quotes. (...) An issue like this came up on news://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english , where I suggested that square brackets should be around a paraphrasing. I hav seen it used to paraphrase someone, and I do not recommend that usage. Square brackets, OTOH, hav long meant that a writer is putting words into someone's mouth. I forget which publication quoted Jean Chretien saying "It is getting a joke!" as "It is getting [to be] a joke!" (regarding Quebec separation). _______ [This noise] is insignificant. [[This]] is moderated stuff, so it is easier to trust. > Further to recent discussions here, the column by the Reader's Editor > in today's Guardian, about Maurice Jarre's obituary, offers a salutary [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/04/journalism-obituaries-shane- fitzgerald It does indeed. The lesson seems to be that if you are publishing something that will be read by millions and could offend the recently bereaved, you should do more than lift unverified statements from any bit of the Internet without doing even a smidgen of background checking. It also offers a lesson in print journalism: when you screw-up, blame someone else! SignatureOnline waterways route planner: http://canalplan.org.uk development version: http://canalplan.eu "Nick" <3-nospam@temporary-address.org.uk> wrote : >> Further to recent discussions here, the column by the Reader's Editor >> in today's Guardian, about Maurice Jarre's obituary, offers a salutary [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > It also offers a lesson in print journalism: when you screw-up, blame > someone else! And, of course, it is not only Wikipaedia that is used. As someone who writes regularly for newspapers I routinely see facts and figures turning up in other organs that can only have come from me. Carefully rewritten, of course, to avoid accusations of you-know-what. The usual response to plagiarism in Fleet Street (I was disappointed to learn when I raised it with one Editor years ago) is a shrug of the shoulders and a sotto voce "There but for the grace of god ..." (although he probably used capital Gs, I can't bring myself to) which probably tells you as much as you need to know about the ubiquity of the practice. I wouldn't touch Wiki with the proverbial barge pole, and, hand on heart, the only newspaper columns I've ever used as a source are my old ones. Philip Eden >> Further to recent discussions here, the column by the Reader's >> Editor in today's Guardian, about Maurice Jarre's obituary, offers >> a salutary lesson in the use of Wikipedia. >> http://tinyurl.com/djqd8w >> or >> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/04/journalism-obituaries-shane- fitzgerald > It does indeed. The lesson seems to be that if you are publishing > something that will be read by millions and could offend the > recently bereaved, you should do more than lift unverified > statements from any bit of the Internet without doing even a > smidgen of background checking. > It also offers a lesson in print journalism: when you screw-up, > blame someone else! Certainly they have something to apologise for. Fitzgerald's disingenuousness suggests that the prank was more malicious than he admits, though. Compare "'I expected the quote to get into the blogs, but I didn't expect it to get into mainstream newspapers,'" and "'My aim was to show that an undergraduate university student in Ireland can influence what newspapers are doing around the world and also that the reliance of newspapers on the internet can lead to some faults.'" Pick one, Shane. > http://tinyurl.com/djqd8w says, i.a.: The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there *or anywhere* if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source. Print encyclopedias have been taken in by hoaxes, too, with far more lasting effects. And, of course, they contain plain errors as well. Signature--- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: Whatever is worth doing is worth doing badly. :|| >> http://tinyurl.com/djqd8w > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Print encyclopedias have been taken in by hoaxes, too, with far more > lasting effects. And, of course, they contain plain errors as well. By chance I was recently reading Stephen Jay Gould's article on how all the textbooks have copied the same outline of evolution - starting with an almost entirely unnecessary refutation of Lamarkism, via comparing a particular horse with "a fox terrier" to using diagrams based on long-disproved fraudlent data. SignatureOnline waterways route planner: http://canalplan.org.uk development version: http://canalplan.eu |
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