The Fact Checker's Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right - Softcover

Smith, Sarah Harrison

 
9780385721066: The Fact Checker's Bible: A Guide to Getting It Right
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0385721064 ISBN 13: 9780385721066
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

  These days fact-checking can seem like a lost art.  The Fact Checker's Bible arrives not a moment too soon: it is the first—and essential—guide to the important but increasingly neglected task of checking facts, whatever their source.

We are all overwhelmed with information that claims to be factual, but even the most punctilious researcher, writer, and journalist can sometimes get it wrong, so checking facts has become a more pressing task.  Now Sarah Harrison Smith, former New Yorker fact checker and currently head of checking for The New York Times Magazine explains exactly how to:

*Reading for accuracy
*Determine what to check
*Research the facts
*Assess sources: people, newspapers and magazines, books, the Internet, etc.
*Check quotations
*Understand the legal liabilities
*Look out for and avoid the dangers of plagiarism

For everyone from students to journalists to editors, the methods and practices outlined in The Fact Checker’s Bible provide both a standard and a working manual for how to get the facts right.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sarah Harrison Smith has been a fact checker at The New Yorker and head of checking at The New York Times Magazine, where she is now editorial manager. She lived in New York City.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

The first book of its kind, The Fact Checker's Bible" is the essential guide to the important but often neglected task of checking facts, whatever their source.
Today, everyone is overwhelmed with information that claims to be factual. But even the most punctilious researcher, writer, student or journalist--not to mention the lazy or deliberately mendacious ones--can sometimes get it wrong. So checking facts has become a more pressing task. But how to go about it?
The Fact Checker's Bible covers:
*Reading for accuracy
*Determining what to check
*Researching the facts
*Assessing sources: people, newspapers and magazines, books, the Internet, etc.
*Checking quotations
*Understanding the legal liabilities of getting it wrong
*Looking out for and avoiding the dangers of plagiarism
For everyone from students to editors to journalists, the methods and practices outlined in The Fact Checker's Bible provides both a standard and a working manual for how to get the facts right.

Aus dem Klappentext

The first book of its kind, The Fact Checker s Bible is the essential guide to the important but often neglected task of checking facts, whatever their source.

Today, everyone is overwhelmed with information that claims to be factual. But even the most punctilious researcher, writer, student or journalist--not to mention the lazy or deliberately mendacious ones--can sometimes get it wrong. So checking facts has become a more pressing task. But how to go about it?

The Fact Checker s Bible covers:

*Reading for accuracy
*Determining what to check
*Researching the facts
*Assessing sources: people, newspapers and magazines, books, the Internet, etc.
*Checking quotations
*Understanding the legal liabilities of getting it wrong
*Looking out for and avoiding the dangers of plagiarism

For everyone from students to editors to journalists, the methods and practices outlined in The Fact Checker s Bible provides both a standard and a working manual for how to get the facts right.

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1

Is That a Fact?

How to Read a Piece for the First Time

When you prepare to read any piece for fact-checking, make certain you have the latest revision of the piece in your hands; there's no reason to struggle through eighteen pages of galleys that have already been cut to ten by an editor. Read with a skeptical eye. If you like to make notes in the margin as you read, go ahead, but do not begin to mark facts systematically during this preliminary reading. Don't concentrate on the individual facts presented. Focus on the structure of the piece as a whole. This is the time to notice its varying degrees of rhetorical success and any obvious flaws in logic. Once you begin to check the facts, it becomes more difficult to concentrate on the writer's encompassing argument.

The first reading is not exactly fact-checking, but it may lead to a very useful understanding of the fact challenges posed by the piece. Your response to the piece will also help you anticipate where the editor may cut or revise it and where you should focus your efforts. The editor will almost certainly ask you what you thought of the piece, and you might as well start off your collaboration by indicating that you understand the big picture as well as the details you'll be discussing and perhaps arguing over later in the checking process.

What to Notice During a First Reading

- In a general way, do you find the piece credible and persuasive? Does the author seem well informed? If you yourself know little about the subject of the piece, you may want to skim other sources for articles and information before you try to make an assessment.

- How does the piece compare to other articles you may have read on the same topic? If you think that the issues have been addressed similarly elsewhere, you will want to confirm your recollection and then make sure the editor is aware of the precedent.

- Does the author's perspective seem notably biased or skewed? If so, you will need to be particularly diligent in fact-checking and should be prepared to go beyond the author's sources to get a more balanced perspective.

- Do any sections of the writing seem lifeless? They may need to be rewritten. You may want to check other areas of the piece before these dull ones, as they may change significantly.

Occasionally, flat writing can be a tip-off that an author is parroting someone else's ideas. When you contact the author after your second reading of the piece, ask that he or she identify sources for all unattributed information.

- Does any of the writing make questionable exaggerations? Hyperbolic assertions tend to disintegrate under checking scrutiny, so if the greater argument of the piece depends on suspiciously grand claims, beware. Plan to check these claims early, so the author and editor will have time to do the rewriting your checking may necessitate.

The Second Reading

During your second reading of the piece you will decide what needs to be checked. This time, take a colored pencil or pen, and as you read, underline statements of fact in the article. These should include any proper names; place names; references to time, distance, date, season; physical descriptions; references to the sex of anyone described (names can be deceiving); quotations; and any arguments or narrative that depend on fact.

Determining What to Check in Nonfiction

In principle, determining what to check is straightforward. Take these sentences from John McPhee's 1968 book The Pine Barrens. Even before the checker has spoken to McPhee about his source material, she will have a general sense of what her checking will entail.

If all the impounding reservoirs, storage reservoirs, and distribution reservoirs in the New York City water system were filled to capacity-from Neversink and Schoharie to the Croton basin and Central Park-the Pine Barrens aquifer would still contain thirty times as much water. So little of this water is used that it can be said to be untapped. Its constant temperature is fifty-four degrees, and in the language of the hydrological report on the Pine Barrens prepared in 1966 for the United States Geological Survey, "it can be expected to be bacterially sterile, odorless, clear; its chemical purity approaches that of uncontaminated rain-water or melted glacier ice."

Each of these sentences should be underlined in red, because each constitutes a statement of fact. In the first sentence the checker will need to confirm that there are indeed impounding reservoirs, storage reservoirs, and distribution reservoirs in the New York City water system, and that Neversink, Schoharie, Croton basin, and Central Park are among those types of reservoirs in that system. The proper geographical names will have to be checked in a good atlas, such as the National Geographic Atlas of the World or a reputable state map. The quotation and details about the quality, temperature, and relative quantity of the Pine Barrens water must be checked against the survey McPhee mentions or against another reliable, preferably official source. Only one statement suggests speculation: "So little of this water is used that it can be said to be untapped." Perhaps this information comes from the survey, too, but if not, the checker will need to ask McPhee whether he has any sources that will support the assertion that the aquifer is effectively "untapped." If McPhee's argument is not wholly borne out by the sources he is able to provide or if his sources do not seem appropriately authoritative, the checker will ask him for the name of an expert on watersheds or find one through an environmental or governmental organization.

As far as these initial readings can suggest, McPhee's facts seem pretty hard. There is not much in the above excerpt to make the checker question the author's bias or argument. A sample from Joan Didion's beautifully written essay "Los Angeles Notebook," another nonfiction work, is slightly more worrying from the fact checker's point of view:

A party at someone's house in Beverly Hills: a pink tent, two orchestras, a couple of French Communist directors in Cardin evening jackets, chili and hamburgers from Chasen's. The wife of an English actor sits at a table alone; she visits California rarely although her husband works here a good deal. An American who knows her slightly comes over to the table.

"Marvelous to see you here," he says.

"Is it," she says.

"How long have you been here?"

"Too long."

She takes a fresh drink from a passing waiter and smiles at her husband, who is dancing.

The American tries again. He mentions her husband.

"I hear he's marvelous in this picture."

She looks at the American for the first time. When she finally speaks she enunciates every word very clearly. "He . . . is . . . also . . . a . . . fag," she says pleasantly.

As in the McPhee, a checker would underline every sentence to signify that these descriptions, characterizations, names, and quotations must be verified. The job facing the checker looks to be very different, however. With the help of the author's notes or perhaps by checking with another guest or the hosts, the checker will have to confirm that the party was actually in Beverly Hills, rather than in some adjacent neighborhood, and that there was a pink tent, orchestras (were there really two?), chili and hamburgers from Chasen's (if that is in fact how the name is spelled), and dancing. The checker would also want to confirm that the party included at least two French Communist directors who were wearing Cardin (this might require calls to their personal assistants), and that waiters brought round trays of drinks to the guests.

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Verlag
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385721064
ISBN 13 
9780385721066
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
192
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Friedensallee 273
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland

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