"Fear" sells more than 750,000 copies its first day

[Apache]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

You did see the winkie, right?

They are selling/peddling a book titled Fear.
And they saw no irony in the title?

Oops. No I did not.
Sorry about that.
Apache

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

That is a new one for me; I've never seen "journalist" with either "with very high standards", or "always makes sure of his facts before publishing", let alone both, in the same sentence before.

Really? How very cynical of you.

When government says one thing, and the press says something else, I give the edge to the press. [Truncated]

[issybird]

I'd like to keep this thread going, but let's try to observe the guidelines and keep it to generalities. Take the specifics to P&R.

[darryl]

Depends on the particular politician or journalist. Personally I think the odds of striking one telling the whole of the story or even the truth is about the same overall for each.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

That is a new one for me; I've never seen "journalist" with either "with very high standards", or "always makes sure of his facts before publishing", let alone both, in the same sentence before.

Do you also believe all Lawyers, Police and Preachers are crooks?
Apache

[DiapDealer]

That there are countless self-aggrandizing hacks on both sides of the politician/media equation has exactly zero bearing on the fact that people of integrity still exist in both camps; and are not that hard to spot for those who choose to look.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Apache

Oops. No I did not.
Sorry about that.
Apache

No problem.
The internet really needs a font/flag for snark.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Anyone remember studying about Hearst and yellow journalism. Bad journalism is arguably why the Spanish-American War occurred in 1898. It's not particularly new.

Hmmm... there was the reputed exchange of telegrams between Frederic Remington, an illustrator whom Hearst had sent to Cuba and William Randolph Hearst in 1897:

Remington being very bored by the lack of anything newsworthy in Cuba cabled to Hearst, “Everything quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. Wish to return.”

In response to Remington’s message, Hearst reportedly replied, “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Hmmm... there was the reputed exchange of telegrams between Frederic Remington, an illustrator whom Hearst had sent to Cuba and William Randolph Hearst in 1897:

Remington being very bored by the lack of anything newsworthy in Cuba cabled to Hearst, “Everything quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. Wish to return.”

In response to Remington’s message, Hearst reportedly replied, “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”

Yep. For most of newspaper history, papers were highly partisan and not real particular about sticking to the facts. The big difference was that for the last few decades, newspaper people pretended they weren't partisan and weren't as blatant about it.

[BelleZora]

The King County library has 706 holds on 142 copies. I'm number 52, so I hope the wait won't be long.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

That is a new one for me; I've never seen "journalist" with either "with very high standards", or "always makes sure of his facts before publishing", let alone both, in the same sentence before.

My older son used to be a journalist. He had high standards and made sure. But "always" is a pretty high standard -- actually, impossible. Everyone makes mistakes. The better the newspaper, the more corrections it publishes.

Having finished Fear, I'm now most of the way through All the President's Men. The latter convinces me that the earlier Woodward/Bernstein team always made sure. Now, once in a great while, they made a mistake. The mistake they write about the most (at least in the first 60 percent of the book) was one where they had four sources.

Here's how it works. Someone comes out of a meeting, and takes notes of what happened. My own job isn't political, but I do it fairly often. Maybe I put quotes around some of what I'm pretty sure I heard. Are the quotes rock-solid accurate? No. Are they pretty close? Usually.

When the notetaker doesn't like what he or she has heard, and doesn't think they've been treated well, they will call somebody like Bob Woodward (or wait until he calls them), and then share their notes. There's no claim that Woodward (and assistant/collaborator Evelyn Duffy) worked from recordings. So it's perfectly obvious that there are notetaking errors in the book. Plus, people don't all come out of a meeting, where there were disagreements, with the same memories. So there are mistaken quotations in journalism as in academic biographies. I see no reason to switch the bulk of my reading to fiction because of occasional mistakes. Of course, better authors make fewer mistakes.

Now, in All the President's Men, what the standard of journalistic proof should be is a big topic of the book. In this new title, it's hardly mentioned. I guess that Woodward may have discussed it to death in his past seventeen non-fiction books. Since I've read few of them, I'd rather have seen the Woodward/Duffy fact check process discussed, at length, in Fear. But since Woodward has gone into it in the past, I don't consider it exactly a flaw in this title.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Toronto Library has 890 holds on 100 copies. I've got the book. A hint for some of you, if you know that a big release book is coming out then check and see if your library's website has the "recommend a book" option. For the Toronto Library you're limited to one recommendation every 20 or 30 days but that way you get on the waiting list even though they don't have the book yet. I've done that with several books ( I think the last one was Fire and Fury) and I got the book the day it came out in the library.

[AnotherCat]

This was addressed to me

Originally Posted by Apache

Do you also believe all Lawyers, Police and Preachers are crooks?
Apache

No I do not, and I am unsure why you would ask, but journalists are out on their own when it comes to ones not trusting what they produce.

The basis of their trade is to create story that will sell. Without my getting into the details stories that set out balanced viewpoints do not sell, a story that is biased one way or the other will as it has clarity. The writer will omit facts, fail to interview the correct people or misquote them, etc. related to one side in order to maintain this charity.

Regarding misquotes, by way of example a very common one I see is of the kind where I know for a fact the person interviewed has said "I think it is possible that {such and such} could happen but the probability is low." is quoted as "Joe Bloggs today admitted that {such and such} will happen".

[Canuck_in_Japan]

I'm not really a big fan of getting these books while history is still being made however. Two or three months down the line and half of this stuff will be out of date or even bigger crazier news will have occurred. That's what I liked so much about the book Game Change about the 2008 election. Everything was said and done and history.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Regarding misquotes, by way of example a very common one I see is of the kind where I know for a fact the person interviewed has said "I think it is possible that {such and such} could happen but the probability is low." is quoted as "Joe Bloggs today admitted that {such and such} will happen".

Are your quotations above accurate?

I realize that you don't intend for "Joe Bloggs" to be an actual person. But, well, I have a personal problem with seeing words between quotation marks that aren't quotations. If you are going to criticize professional mainstream journalism for being inaccurate, how about showing us how it can be done better?

Of course, if Joe Bloggs is a politician, we can't talk about it in this part of Mobileread. But if he's a publishing executive, let's name names here