nick sylvester = maker upper

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"VV blew it as well by not giving him the support, not fully checking the facts, etc."

THEY SHOULDN'T HAVE TO FACT-CHECK HIM FABRICATING QUOTES!!!! As someone that started out as a fact-checker (and had the unpleasant task of finding fabbed quotes), the fact-checker's job should be to, as someone mentioned above, check dates, times, amounts, etc., etc. Yeah, they should've caught these quotes if they'd been doing their job, but that shouldn't be an issue. The only people the fact-checkers let down were the editors and readers; Sylvester is the last person they should feel sorry for.

― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:03 (twenty years ago)

(where's my fucking ILM copy-editor to change my 'that' to 'who' and to catch my dangling modifiers? My grammar's a mess this time of night.)

― Suzy Creemcheese (SuzyCreemcheese), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:05 (twenty years ago)

It sounds like Nick fucked up, which makes me sad, because I really love his stuff.

Nick, if you're reading - I really love your stuff. Good luck and things. Also: don't do this again.

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:07 (twenty years ago)

"Guys, help me out and make sure I don't lie this time. Thanks."

I don't mean for his sake, I mean for their own sake.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:07 (twenty years ago)

This may be endemic of a bigger issue: It used to be that most critics came from a journalism background and knew the basic ethics and procedures, whereas nowadays things often happen backwards -- amateur blogger becomes professional critic becomes professional journalist, and doesn't really know what he or she is doing or what constitues crossing ethical lines.

― jaye, Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:10 (twenty years ago)

The average middle schooler knows that saying that something happened when you know it didn't is "crossing ethical lines"

― Reggie, Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:15 (twenty years ago)

Not if he has a warped view of what real journalism really is.

― jaye, Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:19 (twenty years ago)

So seriously though, will that wallaby shit work for me?

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:20 (twenty years ago)

OMG! YOU MEAN HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY SIT DOWN WITH SOME FRIENDS AND DISCUSS THE GAME?! HOLY SHIT!!!

Cut the guy some slack. Like this affects anyone.

― darin (darin), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:23 (twenty years ago)

OMG! YOU MEAN HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY SIT DOWN WITH SOME FRIENDS AND DISCUSS THE GAME?! HOLY SHIT!!!

Cut the guy some slack. Like this affects anyone.

way to discredit the entire notion of "journalism." thanks.

― hjkh, Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:27 (twenty years ago)

so if nobody gets hurt, "journalists" should just make shit up. Love your thinking, mate!

― timmy tannin (pompous), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:27 (twenty years ago)

Jesus fucking christ. Not every printed word in the English language is "journalism".

― darin (darin), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:28 (twenty years ago)

Jesus fucking christ. Not every printed word in the English language is "journalism".

yes, certainly not a cover article posited as such in a major metropolitan newspaper.

― dfdf, Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:31 (twenty years ago)

pissing off that lookner dude is not quite like failing to assess or challenge the case for invading a country, true.

but it's a public profession. so our fuck-ups are public too.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:33 (twenty years ago)

Editor's note: he's been suspended

http://villagevoice.com/news/0610,news,72372,2.html

― StanM (StanM), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:35 (twenty years ago)

OK so what happens now? He got suspended, there's no way the Voice can let him come back, right? What about Pitchfork? Do you think this guy screwed himself out of a career because of this? Obviously it doesn't rise to Jayson Blair levels of importance, but is this guy ruined now?

― frank e., Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:37 (twenty years ago)

All I'm saying is that whenever shit like this happens, it just always happens to be the peers of the "guy in question" who always freak the fuck out. Like any normal person gives a rat's ass about some fluff designed to placate them on the way to work. I applaud your consistency, but get some perspective.

― darin (darin), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:38 (twenty years ago)

http://www.mixotheque.com/blog/sylvester.JPG

― naturemorte, Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:42 (twenty years ago)

Jousnalist ("writer" / "satirist", "critic", whatever) in "making shit up" shocker. Nick looked very fetching the other week when he was on BBC 6'o'clock news in some hipster hat talking about the Super Bowl show.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:42 (twenty years ago)

-- darin (darin...), March 2nd, 2006.

Most people (even "normal" ones) don't like being bullshitted, regardless of the relative level of importance.

― gdfgdfg, Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:48 (twenty years ago)

Oh I dunno. Why would April Fools Day or Jeremy Beadle exist otherwise.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:50 (twenty years ago)

peers freak the fuck out because this is a profession with its own professional codes, which are mostly there for a reason. there's a lot of diagreement about a lot of things within the profession, but making things up is a universally recognized red-letter offense.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 2 March 2006 08:53 (twenty years ago)

Fair enough. I need to go to bed.

But I still think you guys underestimate the audience sometimes...

― darin (darin), Thursday, 2 March 2006 09:12 (twenty years ago)

I mean we can tell the difference between "information" and "entertainment".

― darin (darin), Thursday, 2 March 2006 09:26 (twenty years ago)

always?

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Thursday, 2 March 2006 09:32 (twenty years ago)

um, no, on the whole we can't. fox news, celebrity culture, star weekly, etc. i mean the readers of the village voice hopefully can. but you seem to be sidestepping the main issue of journalistic integrity. sylvester was quoting real individuals whom he never talked to. if you can tell the difference between entertainment and information then you can understand why that's a problem apart from the readers.

― naturemorte, Thursday, 2 March 2006 09:34 (twenty years ago)

xposted from elsewhere. I am not speaking for Nick - I've only met him three or four times, and we barely crossed paths at Pitchfork - but this is infuriating. And one of the many reasons I refuse to get my financial well-being tied up in writing.

This is exactly the scenario that played out when Steve Martin (Nasty Little Man) went after Brent DiCrescenzo's Beastie Boys review at Pitchfork: an established (and aging) industry peer sees a young cub juggling knives - which we all do to get people to look at us - but instead of smiling knowingly at the bravado - "Hey, I'm on this kid's radar, cute" - Lookner grabs one by the handle and jabs it into his forehead Munich-style.

Lookner is a fellow Harvard alum, and a tiring L.A. comedy writer from the dire MAD TV/mid-90s SNL eras. He was a big part of The Man Show. You will find him falling off the edge of a bar with Jay Mohr on most Wednesday nights. Check out Mohr's Gasping for Airtime insight into this meathead frat-boy clique's pathetic insubstantiality.

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Chris Ott
Editor in Chief
SPIN Magazine

― Chris Ott (Chris Ott), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:05 (twenty years ago)

lol

― ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:11 (twenty years ago)

maybe stay on ur own instead of 'fratboy' cheap shots & playing captain save-a-hack?

― ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:17 (twenty years ago)

classic that nick only got suspended. very impressive, Voice!

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 2 March 2006 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Oh my god I don't believe we just brought up Brent's piece as a comparison to this.

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:13 (twenty years ago)

personally, I defend the right of anyone to get pissed off if they have quotes attributed to them that they did not say, no matter how lame the person is, unless it's clearly a joke, which this wasn't. But I do think it's silly to think this will hurt his career, I mean, maybe if he wanted to write for The New York Times or something, but like Pitchfork could care? Or any number of outlets. The New Yorker Shouts and Murmors section would be a perfect home for him. If they can have Sasha Frere Jones talking about Mariah Carey, they can have Nick's trash talking. Better then jokes about old books I ain't ever read.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:19 (twenty years ago)

There are plenty of great writers able to scoot from satire to straight reporting. I mean, in a sense Christgau does it, Dan Savage does it, Neil Pollack has done it, Tom Wolfe has done it, and so on. I say, ethics aside, if you're going to make something up, make something up about made-up people. Don't make something up about real, living, breathing people unless you know they're cool with it.

Ethics not aside, if you're going to make something up, just write a book or something. It's called "fiction," and a lot of people like it.

― Josh in Chicago (Josh in Chicago), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:22 (twenty years ago)

Nice, Ott.

I feel bad for Sylvester, hopefully this mess will blow over.

Also could Eppy stop posting to this thread. Or be castrated. Or at least stop talking about "we" as though he is more than one lonely person.

― Hairy Asshurt (Toaster), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:23 (twenty years ago)

I think you are mis-guessing what I was going to say about it, but OK.

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:25 (twenty years ago)

I'm glad you're willing to defend that right Dan, given that most people don't like lies being told about them, let alone having lies published for millions of people to read.

This isn't a instance of journalistic ethics that Nick Sylvester didn't learn at j-school or the tutelage of an editor. It's pretty basic morals. If you need to be told that lying is wrong, you've got problems that need more than a suspension. Which is why any editor who hires Nick from here on out will have a credibility problem to contend with. I'm sure Nick's a nice guy, but he just took a long piss into the wind without a clean towel in view.

FWIW, Ruth Shalit hasn't had a byline in years.

― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:31 (twenty years ago)

any edtior who hires a guy known for treating rappers like anonymous shit to their faces while fawning over weirdo rock bands had a credibility problem to begin with

― ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:34 (twenty years ago)

I think you are mis-guessing what I was going to say about it, but OK.

-- Eppy (epp...), March 2nd, 2006.

I don't feel I should devote my time here on this thread to guessing what you are gonna say.

Say it or get off the can.

― Hairy Asshurt (Toaster), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:38 (twenty years ago)

don weiner otm -- words i've never said before.

wtf at all this 'fact-checker' shit? just do it right the first time, you lazy so-and-sos.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:41 (twenty years ago)

i blame the readers for believing him

― ,,,,,,,,,,,, Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:43 (twenty years ago)

the other night i was at a bar in paris talking to some swedish girls that were too tall and good-looking for me. we started talking about shows in paris and music news etc and, like most conversations about music with people my age, avoided mentioning pitchfork for as long as possible. when it finally happened (talking about new knife album), one of them said, "oh. yah. like, mah friend was in nyoo york and mett neek sylvestre."

NICK LIE ALL YOU WANT YOU ARE INTERNATIONAL GONZO MUSIC SEX SYMBOL!!

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:51 (twenty years ago)

I'm curious about ,,,,,'s comments about Nick treating rappers like "anonymous shit", as some rock-band friends of mine had a similar experience. sylvester's very short article on them was riddled with small mistakes. nothing earth-shattering, but about one inaccuracy per line. he got song titles wrong, an album title wrong, the band's label wrong, identified the drummer as the singer, misattributed quotes from people in the band, and quoted lyrics inaccurately. again, nothing of terrible importance but it was kind of laughable.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:57 (twenty years ago)

wtf at all this 'fact-checker' shit? just do it right the first time, you lazy so-and-sos.

newspapers should have fact-checkers. ostensibly, newspapers report news, and for a paper (even an alt-weekly) to lay off its fact-checkers is very irresponsible. i totally agree that ~~journalists~~ people who write for newspapers have an unspoken oath to get their facts straight, but the factchecking department should always be on guard to cover the newspaper's ass.

― jbr, Thursday, 2 March 2006 14:58 (twenty years ago)

"caring" isn't the vicefork WAY

― jbr, Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:00 (twenty years ago)

it's not a newspaper, it's the village voice. there isn't much objection along NYT lines, because the story is trivial, but he obviously fucked up -- and the question is WHY BOTHER MAKING IT UP? i can't imagine fact-checkers would get into this kind of territory anyway -- maybe on the new yorker, but generally?

xpost

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:01 (twenty years ago)

it's not a newspaper, it's the village voice.

it is a newspaper, in that it often publshes news features.

― Autonomous University of Zacatecas (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:03 (twenty years ago)

yeah why would anybody care about blatant lying in the voice-

In its March 30 issue, The Village Voice broke a shocking story connecting the growth of US-aided Muslim militance in Afghanistan with the February bombing of the World Trade Center.

(...)

In March of this year, the Village Voice broke exclusive new details of a special IBM wartime subsidiary set up in Poland by IBM's New York headquarters shortly after Hitler's 1939 invasion.

(...)

First, there was the story the Village Voice broke about the Mayor's aides allegedly offering a $144,000/year job to former City Councilman Thomas Ognibene in order not to run against Mayor Bloomberg in the GOP primary.

- its not a serious paper or anything

― ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:08 (twenty years ago)

he should have added a disclaimer like he did on his fake Voice blog:

"Disclaimer: With the exception of the MP3 and verifiable band bio, this entire entry is probably made up."

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:09 (twenty years ago)

fritz i dont doubt he treats rock bands like anonymous shit too but he also seems to engage with their music more readily when it comes to actually posting seriously - maybe i just notice the rap shit more cuz its this smarmy harvard grad acting like a dick to ppl from my city

― ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:11 (twenty years ago)

ott joins the jackass parade.

instead of smiling knowingly at the bravado - "Hey, I'm on this kid's radar, cute"

how would you feel if a big newspaper printed a story saying you were in new york when you weren't? how would your wife + family feel?

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 2 March 2006 15:24 (twenty years ago)

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