Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism and double standards
In a message dated 9/4/02 9:07:59 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Attacking journalists when they make mistakes, however, clearly is not appropriate or effective most of the time. - Ed Parrot But it's OK for journalists to do the same? malmo Sure. It's in the job description. Jim Gerweck Running Times
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism and double standards
No one is attacking the journalist. We (the readers) are just correcting the facts, that's all. It's done ALL the time. Read page 2 of any newspaper under errata. JL - Original Message - From: malmo [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 6:06 PM Subject: RE: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism and double standards Attacking journalists when they make mistakes, however, clearly is not appropriate or effective most of the time.
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
Ron, In the middle of nowhere is a relative term(and therefore debatable) which I will take full and complete responsibility for. There was actually at least one other error in my post and that is that she finished 8th not 7th. I posted that correction immediately but the server gods saw fit not to pass it through. I actually tried to figure out where the race was held. I knew it was Debbie's club(don't know if it is yours) in Victoria but once the results were posted and the race was done, the background information including venue was gone-at least I couldn't find it. The middle of nowhere comment was more my take on the depth of the race. The road racing scene out there is not quite what it used to be when the Williams', Butler, your wife, McCloy, Nelson etc. etc. used to show up at road races once in a while. 350,000 people and 15:51 and 17:31 are the winning times! The horror. That, however, is a whole other thread. Regards, Martin ron bowker wrote: Martin, Speaking of journalistic inaccuracy, I'm not sure whether the reference to a 5km race out in the middle of nowhere is a statement made by yourself or a quote from your local newspaper. Regardless, I would not consider a 5 K. along the harbour in downtown Victoria (Capital of B.C., population of about 350,000, host City of the 1994 Commonwealth Games) out in the middle of nowhere. Ron Bowker At 02:37 PM 9/4/2002 -0400, Martin J. Dixon wrote: I was trying not to offend anyone. It was an observation but I stand by my statement and I have made it before and I am not just talking about track. Me thinks that it hit a little too close to home. I don't think it is arrogant to try to be accurate. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast producing 100 or so pages of newsprint on a daily basis but that article had several errors in it and the 5 hour one was glaring. An endurance athlete should have known better. If I made that many mistakes on a daily basis in my business, I would lose my client base so fast it would be shocking not to mention the constant dealings that I would be having with our insurance company. Maybe that is the standard. I don't know. Very small example. Yesterday morning, I am reading in our local paper about a girl from our area that represented Canada at the Commonwealth games in the triathlon. Our firm actually sponsors her. The paper said that she won the women's division of a 5km race out in the middle of nowhere in 16:50. I'm thinking to myself that the time seemed a little quick so I started poking around. I wanted to see the other times to see if there was some problem with the course. Here is what I found in about 2 minutes: http://pih.bc.ca/results/2002/songhees5k.html Look at the 7th place time. I pointed out the problem to the sports editor and they ran a correction. He thanked me for the information and made no editorial comments about arrogance. If you make a mistake, you fix it and try to do better the next time. You don't deflect the blame. Regards, Martin Martin J. Dixon, B. Math. (Hons), C.A., Partner Millard, Rouse Rosebrugh LLP Chartered Accountants P.O. Box 367 96 Nelson Street Brantford, Ontario N3T 5N3 Direct Dial: (519) 759-3708 Ext. 231 Telephone: (519) 759-3511 Private Facsimile: (519) 759-8548 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web site: www.millards.com Practice Areas: www.millards.com/htm/profs/m_mjdixo.htm IMPORTANT NOTICE: This email may be confidential, may be legally privileged, and is for the intended recipient only. Access, disclosure, copying, distribution or reliance on any of it by anyone else is prohibited and may be a criminal offence. Please delete if obtained in error and email confirmation to the sender. James Tysell wrote: T F fans, I sent a couple of entries to the list about the Viren article to a journalist friend of mine, here in N. Calif. Here is his reaction: Yeah, if there's anything that makes me not want to cover track and field, it's the fact that there is so much data, coupled with some really persnickety fans. Not to say all track fans are that way, but I've been on the t-and-f list before, and it gets pretty nauseating. I don't know the guy who wrote that story, but he's a Sacramento-based freelancer who also seems to be an endurance athlete. He wrote some Tour de France stories over the summer and apparently talked to Viren when he was overseas. He's definitely not some young kid. Anyone who says anytime I read a newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are numerous is just too arrogant for his own good. another perspective.. Jim Tysell
t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
T F fans, I sent a couple of entries to the list about the Viren article to a journalist friend of mine, here in N. Calif. Here is his reaction: Yeah, if there's anything that makes me not want to cover track and field, it's the fact that there is so much data, coupled with some really persnickety fans. Not to say all track fans are that way, but I've been on the t-and-f list before, and it gets pretty nauseating. I don't know the guy who wrote that story, but he's a Sacramento-based freelancer who also seems to be an endurance athlete. He wrote some Tour de France stories over the summer and apparently talked to Viren when he was overseas. He's definitely not some young kid. Anyone who says anytime I read a newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are numerous is just too arrogant for his own good. another perspective.. Jim Tysell
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
--- James Tysell's anonymous friend wrote: Anyone who says anytime I read a newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are numerous is just too arrogant for his own good. You learn something new every day... I now know that knowledge and arrogance are the same thing! For what it's worth, I think Martin's quoted statement was 100% accurate. If there's any arrogance at play, it's on the part of the factually challenged journalist resenting being corrected. I don't know the guy who wrote that story, but he's a Sacramento-based freelancer who also seems to be an endurance athlete. He wrote some Tour de France stories over the summer and apparently talked to Viren when he was overseas. He's definitely not some young kid. I believe he is a Runner's World editor, unless I have my articles mixed up. Dan = http://AccountBiller.com - MyCalendar, D-Man, ReSearch, etc. http://Run-Down.com - 10,000 Running Links, Fantasy TF @o Dan Kaplan - [EMAIL PROTECTED] |\/ ^- ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) _/ \ \/\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] (lifetime forwarding address) / / (503)370-9969 phone/fax __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
I was trying not to offend anyone. It was an observation but I stand by my statement and I have made it before and I am not just talking about track. Me thinks that it hit a little too close to home. I don't think it is arrogant to try to be accurate. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast producing 100 or so pages of newsprint on a daily basis but that article had several errors in it and the 5 hour one was glaring. An endurance athlete should have known better. If I made that many mistakes on a daily basis in my business, I would lose my client base so fast it would be shocking not to mention the constant dealings that I would be having with our insurance company. Maybe that is the standard. I don't know. Very small example. Yesterday morning, I am reading in our local paper about a girl from our area that represented Canada at the Commonwealth games in the triathlon. Our firm actually sponsors her. The paper said that she won the women's division of a 5km race out in the middle of nowhere in 16:50. I'm thinking to myself that the time seemed a little quick so I started poking around. I wanted to see the other times to see if there was some problem with the course. Here is what I found in about 2 minutes: http://pih.bc.ca/results/2002/songhees5k.html Look at the 7th place time. I pointed out the problem to the sports editor and they ran a correction. He thanked me for the information and made no editorial comments about arrogance. If you make a mistake, you fix it and try to do better the next time. You don't deflect the blame. Regards, Martin Martin J. Dixon, B. Math. (Hons), C.A., Partner Millard, Rouse Rosebrugh LLP Chartered Accountants P.O. Box 367 96 Nelson Street Brantford, Ontario N3T 5N3 Direct Dial: (519) 759-3708 Ext. 231 Telephone: (519) 759-3511 Private Facsimile: (519) 759-8548 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web site: www.millards.com Practice Areas: www.millards.com/htm/profs/m_mjdixo.htm IMPORTANT NOTICE: This email may be confidential, may be legally privileged, and is for the intended recipient only. Access, disclosure, copying, distribution or reliance on any of it by anyone else is prohibited and may be a criminal offence. Please delete if obtained in error and email confirmation to the sender. James Tysell wrote: T F fans, I sent a couple of entries to the list about the Viren article to a journalist friend of mine, here in N. Calif. Here is his reaction: Yeah, if there's anything that makes me not want to cover track and field, it's the fact that there is so much data, coupled with some really persnickety fans. Not to say all track fans are that way, but I've been on the t-and-f list before, and it gets pretty nauseating. I don't know the guy who wrote that story, but he's a Sacramento-based freelancer who also seems to be an endurance athlete. He wrote some Tour de France stories over the summer and apparently talked to Viren when he was overseas. He's definitely not some young kid. Anyone who says anytime I read a newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are numerous is just too arrogant for his own good. another perspective.. Jim Tysell
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
Yeah, if there's anything that makes me not want to cover track and field, it's the fact that there is so much data, coupled with some really persnickety fans. Not to say all track fans are that way, but I've been on the t-and-f list before, and it gets pretty nauseating. . . . . . Anyone who says anytime I read a newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are numerous is just too arrogant for his own good. The first statement is quite an ignorant one - anyone who's ever covered baseball or football should never complain about the data in track and field. And many of the sports talk shows that I have had the misfortune to listen to make the track and field list positively uplifting by comparison. Proper journalism really has very little to do with what's important to hardcore fans and it's unfortunate that this guy doesn't get that. As for the second statement, that is one of those loaded observations - there's no way to respond without sounding like one is proving the author's point. But if the alternative is to be silent while standards keep going further and further down, then I'd rather be an arrogant SOB who cares about quality and attention to detail and who demands more of people than mediocrity. If I (or many other people) made these kind of errors in my job, I wouldn't have a job for long. The statement reminds me of what many intelligent adolescents have to go through - peer pressure to avoid showing any use of the brain whatsoever. - Ed Parrot
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
One other thing that our anonymous friend did other than making me fall for the bait is that he selectively edited my statement. I said it seems like A perception, in other words. But then SOME journalists(no one on this list!) will use that trick too-take people out of context for their own purposes. Regards, Martin Ed and Dana Parrot wrote: Yeah, if there's anything that makes me not want to cover track and field, it's the fact that there is so much data, coupled with some really persnickety fans. Not to say all track fans are that way, but I've been on the t-and-f list before, and it gets pretty nauseating. . . . . . Anyone who says anytime I read a newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are numerous is just too arrogant for his own good. The first statement is quite an ignorant one - anyone who's ever covered baseball or football should never complain about the data in track and field. And many of the sports talk shows that I have had the misfortune to listen to make the track and field list positively uplifting by comparison. Proper journalism really has very little to do with what's important to hardcore fans and it's unfortunate that this guy doesn't get that. As for the second statement, that is one of those loaded observations - there's no way to respond without sounding like one is proving the author's point. But if the alternative is to be silent while standards keep going further and further down, then I'd rather be an arrogant SOB who cares about quality and attention to detail and who demands more of people than mediocrity. If I (or many other people) made these kind of errors in my job, I wouldn't have a job for long. The statement reminds me of what many intelligent adolescents have to go through - peer pressure to avoid showing any use of the brain whatsoever. - Ed Parrot
RE: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
As a journalist who makes many mistakes on an every-day basis, let me offer my thoughts. Unless you're talking about the Dallas Morning News, sports departments are tremendously understaffed and overworked. We don't have time to craft stories and triple-check every fact we put in a story like we should. We have to crank out story after story, meeting strenuous deadlines and constantly dealing with idiots who call the newspaper to settle a drunken bet on how many games the Dallas Cowboys won in 1968. I have a staff of five full-time employees trying to write, edit and produce a six-page sports section seven days a week, 365 days a year. If you're interested in this type of thing, you must have a college degree, be willing to work 55 hour weeks, work on Christmas eve and Christmas day, and be willing to start at $21,000 a year. On days when you are writing, you have to produce two or three stories and interview around 10 people, plus deal with moron parents who want to know why you personally hate their kid so much that you refuse to write stories on them even though they work just as hard as everyone else. (After doing a story on a young lady who went blind in one eye before her junior year but became her team's best basketball player, another parent told me their daughter was just as deserving of a story because she had the flu two weeks ago.) When you are done, two people in charge of creating all six pages will try to find the time to edit the stories, get them on the page, get them to fit, put a headline on it, then do this with the other 20 stories in the section. In the profession, we call the newspaper the daily miracle. Unfortunately, mistakes get made. Sometimes really, really bad ones. Two months ago I may have made the worst one ever (right now picture Lee Nichols with tears of laughter rolling down his face). So people call in to get corrections. These fall into two categories: Helpful, nice people who want you to get it right; and little nitpickers playing 'I found an error in the paper and gee you guys are idiots.' Picture this scenario last year: A coach tells us his star runner, who runs the 400 more than one second faster than anyone else in his classification in our area, is undefeated. We check this as best we can and run it. The next day some parent calls and says that no, their son beat that guy in a prelim, and when the finals were cancelled because of lightening, they carried over the prelim times and declared their son the winner, so we are stupid and have no credibility and because of that everything they read they assume is wrong, and that's why we're called the Sub-Standard-Times ha ha ha ha ha. In response, I offered to mail the guy 50 cents to cover the cost of his paper. Yes, errors are unacceptable. Yes, they happen. No, we don't mean to. And to all the people who tell me they'd be fired if they made these kinds of errors, I wish they would see the situations we work under and what we're paid to do it. -Original Message- From: Martin J. Dixon [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 1:38 PM To: James Tysell; Track Field List Subject: Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism I was trying not to offend anyone. It was an observation but I stand by my statement and I have made it before and I am not just talking about track. Me thinks that it hit a little too close to home. I don't think it is arrogant to try to be accurate. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast producing 100 or so pages of newsprint on a daily basis but that article had several errors in it and the 5 hour one was glaring. An endurance athlete should have known better. If I made that many mistakes on a daily basis in my business, I would lose my client base so fast it would be shocking not to mention the constant dealings that I would be having with our insurance company. Maybe that is the standard. I don't know. Very small example. Yesterday morning, I am reading in our local paper about a girl from our area that represented Canada at the Commonwealth games in the triathlon. Our firm actually sponsors her. The paper said that she won the women's division of a 5km race out in the middle of nowhere in 16:50. I'm thinking to myself that the time seemed a little quick so I started poking around. I wanted to see the other times to see if there was some problem with the course. Here is what I found in about 2 minutes: http://pih.bc.ca/results/2002/songhees5k.html Look at the 7th place time. I pointed out the problem to the sports editor and they ran a correction. He thanked me for the information and made no editorial comments about arrogance. If you make a mistake, you fix it and try to do better the next time. You don't deflect the blame. Regards, Martin Martin J. Dixon, B. Math. (Hons), C.A., Partner Millard, Rouse Rosebrugh LLP Chartered Accountants P.O. Box 367 96 Nelson Street Brantford, Ontario N3T 5N3
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
Very thoughtful post. I would say that both the salary and time pressure that he mentions can explain much of the problem. Clearly publishers/owners (because the buck must stop with tme) have decided that accuracy can be sacrificed. All the more reason for people to complain rather than simply accept it. Attacking journalists when they make mistakes, however, clearly is not appropriate or effective most of the time. - Ed Parrot - Original Message - From: Bloomquist, Bret [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Track Field List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 12:25 PM Subject: RE: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism As a journalist who makes many mistakes on an every-day basis, let me offer my thoughts. Unless you're talking about the Dallas Morning News, sports departments are tremendously understaffed and overworked. We don't have time to craft stories and triple-check every fact we put in a story like we should. We have to crank out story after story, meeting strenuous deadlines and constantly dealing with idiots who call the newspaper to settle a drunken bet on how many games the Dallas Cowboys won in 1968. I have a staff of five full-time employees trying to write, edit and produce a six-page sports section seven days a week, 365 days a year. If you're interested in this type of thing, you must have a college degree, be willing to work 55 hour weeks, work on Christmas eve and Christmas day, and be willing to start at $21,000 a year. On days when you are writing, you have to produce two or three stories and interview around 10 people, plus deal with moron parents who want to know why you personally hate their kid so much that you refuse to write stories on them even though they work just as hard as everyone else. (After doing a story on a young lady who went blind in one eye before her junior year but became her team's best basketball player, another parent told me their daughter was just as deserving of a story because she had the flu two weeks ago.) When you are done, two people in charge of creating all six pages will try to find the time to edit the stories, get them on the page, get them to fit, put a headline on it, then do this with the other 20 stories in the section. In the profession, we call the newspaper the daily miracle. Unfortunately, mistakes get made. Sometimes really, really bad ones. Two months ago I may have made the worst one ever (right now picture Lee Nichols with tears of laughter rolling down his face). So people call in to get corrections. These fall into two categories: Helpful, nice people who want you to get it right; and little nitpickers playing 'I found an error in the paper and gee you guys are idiots.' Picture this scenario last year: A coach tells us his star runner, who runs the 400 more than one second faster than anyone else in his classification in our area, is undefeated. We check this as best we can and run it. The next day some parent calls and says that no, their son beat that guy in a prelim, and when the finals were cancelled because of lightening, they carried over the prelim times and declared their son the winner, so we are stupid and have no credibility and because of that everything they read they assume is wrong, and that's why we're called the Sub-Standard-Times ha ha ha ha ha. In response, I offered to mail the guy 50 cents to cover the cost of his paper. Yes, errors are unacceptable. Yes, they happen. No, we don't mean to. And to all the people who tell me they'd be fired if they made these kinds of errors, I wish they would see the situations we work under and what we're paid to do it. -Original Message- From: Martin J. Dixon [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 1:38 PM To: James Tysell; Track Field List Subject: Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism I was trying not to offend anyone. It was an observation but I stand by my statement and I have made it before and I am not just talking about track. Me thinks that it hit a little too close to home. I don't think it is arrogant to try to be accurate. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast producing 100 or so pages of newsprint on a daily basis but that article had several errors in it and the 5 hour one was glaring. An endurance athlete should have known better. If I made that many mistakes on a daily basis in my business, I would lose my client base so fast it would be shocking not to mention the constant dealings that I would be having with our insurance company. Maybe that is the standard. I don't know. Very small example. Yesterday morning, I am reading in our local paper about a girl from our area that represented Canada at the Commonwealth games in the triathlon. Our firm actually sponsors her. The paper said that she won the women's division of a 5km race out in the middle of nowhere in 16:50. I'm thinking to myself that the time
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
- Original Message - From: Bloomquist, Bret [EMAIL PROTECTED] As a journalist who makes many mistakes on an every-day basis, let me offer my thoughts. Unless you're talking about the Dallas Morning News, sports departments are tremendously understaffed and overworked. We don't have time to craft stories and triple-check every fact we put in a story like we should. As Andrew Marvel said to his coy mistress, Had we but world and time enough... Same with magazine writing and book writing. Time and money rules. At some point you have to stop researching and hand in your work. Too late you will find out that some of the stuff you weren't sure about and could have used was OK but the copyediting, proofing is done and the publisher won't assume the costs of redoing the page layout. Tom Derderian
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
Ed and Dana Parrot wrote: Clearly publishers/owners (because the buck must stop with tme) have decided that accuracy can be sacrificed. I guess that when I sign up for the Rocky Mountain News for one year for $3.12 and an extra year for $.01that I also have made the decision that accuracy can be sacrificed. With the present day news media, TF News excluded, anything I read or hear is just another interesting story, maybe true maybe not. John Lunn
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
From: John Lunn [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: John Lunn [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 14:47:02 -0600 To: Ed and Dana Parrot [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Athletics [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism I guess that when I sign up for the Rocky Mountain News for one year for $3.12 and an extra year for $.01that I also have made the decision that accuracy can be sacrificed. With the present day news media, TF News excluded, anything I read or hear is just another interesting story, maybe true maybe not. those who trust everything they read in TFN do so at their own peril! :-) gh
RE: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism and double standards
Attacking journalists when they make mistakes, however, clearly is not appropriate or effective most of the time. - Ed Parrot But it's OK for journalists to do the same? malmo
Re: t-and-f: Viren article and journalism
Martin, Speaking of journalistic inaccuracy, I'm not sure whether the reference to a 5km race out in the middle of nowhere is a statement made by yourself or a quote from your local newspaper. Regardless, I would not consider a 5 K. along the harbour in downtown Victoria (Capital of B.C., population of about 350,000, host City of the 1994 Commonwealth Games) out in the middle of nowhere. Ron Bowker At 02:37 PM 9/4/2002 -0400, Martin J. Dixon wrote: I was trying not to offend anyone. It was an observation but I stand by my statement and I have made it before and I am not just talking about track. Me thinks that it hit a little too close to home. I don't think it is arrogant to try to be accurate. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast producing 100 or so pages of newsprint on a daily basis but that article had several errors in it and the 5 hour one was glaring. An endurance athlete should have known better. If I made that many mistakes on a daily basis in my business, I would lose my client base so fast it would be shocking not to mention the constant dealings that I would be having with our insurance company. Maybe that is the standard. I don't know. Very small example. Yesterday morning, I am reading in our local paper about a girl from our area that represented Canada at the Commonwealth games in the triathlon. Our firm actually sponsors her. The paper said that she won the women's division of a 5km race out in the middle of nowhere in 16:50. I'm thinking to myself that the time seemed a little quick so I started poking around. I wanted to see the other times to see if there was some problem with the course. Here is what I found in about 2 minutes: http://pih.bc.ca/results/2002/songhees5k.html Look at the 7th place time. I pointed out the problem to the sports editor and they ran a correction. He thanked me for the information and made no editorial comments about arrogance. If you make a mistake, you fix it and try to do better the next time. You don't deflect the blame. Regards, Martin Martin J. Dixon, B. Math. (Hons), C.A., Partner Millard, Rouse Rosebrugh LLP Chartered Accountants P.O. Box 367 96 Nelson Street Brantford, Ontario N3T 5N3 Direct Dial: (519) 759-3708 Ext. 231 Telephone: (519) 759-3511 Private Facsimile: (519) 759-8548 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web site: www.millards.com Practice Areas: www.millards.com/htm/profs/m_mjdixo.htm IMPORTANT NOTICE: This email may be confidential, may be legally privileged, and is for the intended recipient only. Access, disclosure, copying, distribution or reliance on any of it by anyone else is prohibited and may be a criminal offence. Please delete if obtained in error and email confirmation to the sender. James Tysell wrote: T F fans, I sent a couple of entries to the list about the Viren article to a journalist friend of mine, here in N. Calif. Here is his reaction: Yeah, if there's anything that makes me not want to cover track and field, it's the fact that there is so much data, coupled with some really persnickety fans. Not to say all track fans are that way, but I've been on the t-and-f list before, and it gets pretty nauseating. I don't know the guy who wrote that story, but he's a Sacramento-based freelancer who also seems to be an endurance athlete. He wrote some Tour de France stories over the summer and apparently talked to Viren when he was overseas. He's definitely not some young kid. Anyone who says anytime I read a newspaper article about which I am intimately familiar, the errors are numerous is just too arrogant for his own good. another perspective.. Jim Tysell
