On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 4:00 PM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
This is naive. A NYT article on a subject reports a number of things, some facts, some their interpretations to various extents. They will furthermore publish an umber of articles as an story develops. . It is necessary to select what one wishes to use from among this, and to harmonize it with what others report, and to set it within context. Staying strictly within the sources, most important topics of controversy can be turned into expressions of undiluted POV merely by selective quotation of reliable sources. there is no mechanical formula for writing article, any more than for reporting .It take both intelligence, and the determination to do a fair job. One can also use intelligence and skill to do an unfair job.
On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 2:44 AM, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
And that part is exactly -why- we require sources, including to change something at a subject's request. If reliable sources indicate something, and the subject says "It isn't so" but we've got nothing to verify that, we can't simply say "Oh, alright," and change the article.
One thing we -can- do in such a case, as stated earlier, is to change that particular part of the article to a quoted form, e.g. "The New York Times reported in 2006 that foo did bar", rather than "Foo did bar <ref name="nyt">". In that case, our statement -cannot- be inaccurate, provided that the New York Times really did make such a report-we're simply in that case asserting that such a report was made.
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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And if we've got an undue weight issue, we certainly should correct it. Cherrypicking or giving undue weight to sources to create a non-neutral article slanted toward one's own bias has never been acceptable and never should be. However, neither has excluding well sourced information because someone simply dislikes it or states it isn't so, and that shouldn't fly either.