Getting it right

[andie nachgeborenen]

Your guy ought to be more relaxed. I agree that we
ought to be careful to get things right (look what
happened to that historian at Emory!), but journalists
are not scientists or experts in a lot of the areas
that they write about, and if they are held to the
standards of 100% accuracy on everything, no one will
read them about anything. I mean, they can't even get
quotes right. I have never beeb completely accurately
quoted by the press when I have been interviewed (even
when they get the general sense right); I am sure
Doug, who gets interviewed lots more, has had the same
experience. So it seems to me that your pal was
looking for an excuse to blow Moore off, unless he'll
apply the same standard to mainstream and right wing
journalism with the same results, i.e., not read any
of it. Furthermore there is a lot of dispute about the
science of global warming, as I understand it,
although a lot of it is ideological, there is still
disagreement. From what I gather, and lord knows I am
not an expert, responsible scientists agree that it's
happening and it's a problem, but how much and just
what, these are not Facts like the earth being round.

jks

--- budge <budge at el-pleasant.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> Well, as I have argued before, specifically w.r.t.
> Michael
> Moore, but also more generally with left polemical
> writing,
> leftists should be Caesar's wife when it comes to
> getting
> their facts straight.
> 
> This past weekend at my company's xmas party (oops,
> that is
> "end of the year employee appreciation gala", now),
> I was
> talking to my boss who has been reading Moore's
> latest book
> and was considering going to see Bowling for
> Columbine.  He
> had once before asked me if I thought Moore was
> reliable
> when he was discussing the voter fraud in Florida. 
> I noted
> that Moore was not always 100% spot-on with his
> command of
> the facts and offered to loan him Greg Palast's book
> on the
> topic.
> 
> Unfortunately, the guy started reading some of
> Moore's
> assertions about global warming.  The guy has a PhD
> in
> Chemistry, is a practicing R&D scientist, subscribes
> to
> Science (and reads the damn thing), and is generally
> pretty
> well informed about scientific matters.  He found
> things
> that were just plain wrong in Moore's presentation
> of the
> scientific facts about global warming.  He now
> doesn't trust
> a word Moore says and will never pay any attention
> to him
> again.  As he said to me: "Oh well, it was fun while
> it
> lasted", meaning it was fun reading someone
> entertaining
> whose politics were a little more interesting than
> he was
> accustomed to; but that now that he knows him to be
> a
> unrelaiable he won't reding him anymore.
> 
> Thanks Mike, I've spent the last 5 years gently
> nudging this
> guy to the left and getting him to read any politics
> at all.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> no Onan
> 
> 
> 

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