On 3/21/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>
wrote:
With regards to Carmen's age I'm assuming
that the question of her
editing her own article is not a factor, and that here _claim_ to be 19
is properly documented to be a claim. I'm also assuming that there is
no direct statement that she lied about her age, and all that is really
said is that her birth certificate establishes her age as 26.
It strikes me as unethical to retain information which we know to be
wrong simply because the document which establishes the correct
information is not in an acceptable format. If we are to remove the
information about her correct age we must also remove the information
about the age which we know to be false.
Would the information really be wrong though? We're stating that she claims
she's 19. Our having direct knowledge of the fact that she's 26 does not
alter the fact that she claims that she is 19, so I don't see how the
inclusion of the statement is any more unethical than it was before it was
verified false, so long as it is phrased "Carmen is 19 according to <insert
link to interview or some other source>" and not "Carmen is 19". People
lie
all the time; if we quote anyone what we're quoting is only as reliable as
the you would consider the person to be.
As long as we need to engawge in circumlocutions to express doubt about
some fundamental fact we can't consider ourselves reliable. As much as
I agree in the principle of verifiable facts, there still comes a point
where a strict literal interpretation of rules leaves us hoisted on our
own absurdity.
Ec