More generally, journalists are rarely capable of handling scientific
topics because very few have any kind of scientific background. In all
likelihood during their school days they were the ones who did very well
in classes where they could showcase their "creative" writing skills,
and who did very poorly in science if they couldn't get out of such
classes altogether.
This may be the most asinine, sweeping generalization I've ever heard on
this list. You're making a general assertion about the school habits of all
journalists that is completely verifiable, besides being utterly untrue.
When you comment on the personal histories of journalists, don't you think
it's a little funny that you criticize them as having no knowledge or frame
of reference on a subject, and yet you have no intimate knowledge or frame
of reference on journalists and their histories? What nonsense.
On 7/25/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 25/07/07, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)waterwiki.info> wrote:
It isn't so much that he's wrong, but how
much can you learn about
WIKIPEDIA by interviewing Larry Sanders and the management
of Britannica?
David Gerard had to show him the edit button...
I must say he got it very quickly though. And by "it" I mean what's
addictive about Wikipedia. I could see it in his eyes!
Although only a few minutes of talking to me made it in out of an hour
or two's recording, I did point out that you'll meet idiots on
Wikipedia, just like anywhere on the internet. So I tried not to
whitewash the joys of Wikipedia.
The piece reflects more on the reliability and
integrity of the BBC
than on that of Wikipedia. It was amateurish.
It was a magazine-style article rather than investigative journalism.
Though [[Clive Anderson]] is no idiot, and his fans know this. I
thought it was an entirely reasonable approach for him and his
producer to have taken to the show.
(Arkady was away that day and her jaw dropped when I told her. "Clive
Anderson was in our house?!" "And sitting in your chair!")
(Free pic of him up on his article next week. It's currently on the
Linux share of my work laptop, which is living in Windows for the week
while I'm on a training course.)
However a nice note at the end encouraging people
to edit, "It's your
encyclopedia".
I was enormously pleased with how positive the resulting piece was.
I'm only worried it was too positive.
I was somewhat annoyed my usual description of "neutral point of view"
didn't make it in - "it's the overview from 20,000 feet. And none of
us are 20,000 feet above, we're all down here, but we try to work out
what the view would look like from there with others." This answers
Britannica's frequent furphy about the truth not being up for a vote.
- d.
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