we were just pretending
Theater, Disguised Up as Real Journalism - NYTimes.com →
“I’m more concerned about the suggestion that you have to cheat to come up with remarkable journalism.”
Nice piece on the ever-evolving Mike Daisey the-truth-was-too-boring-so-I-fixed-it scandal from David Carr.
‘This American Life’ retracts Mike Daisey’s Apple report →
This is a shame. I always had a lot of respect for Mike Daisey, and it makes me sad that he’s hiding behind the “this is theater” thing as an excuse for fudging the facts on something this major. That’s some James Frey shit right there, only worse, because Daisey’s story affects so many people.
Also, kind of a huge fact-checking gaff on This American Life’s part! But props to them for owning up to their mistake in a huge way.
View Larger Two Western Journalists Killed in Syria Shelling - NYTimes.com
R.I.P. Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik. Unbelievably brave journalists.
Checklist for being a “real” journalist →
….etc.
If one can stop looking at the past and start listening to it, one might hear echoes of a new conversation; then the task of the critic would be to lead speakers and listeners unaware of each other’s existence to talk to one another. The job of the critic would be to maintain the ability to be surprised at how the conversation goes, and to communicate that sense of surprise to other people, because a life infused with surprise is better than a life that is not.
— Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century
