nick sylvester = maker upper

This reminds me of the time when the Herald -- or somebody? -- ran a New Year's Day story about fireworks exploding from the seven hills of Edinburgh as the Proclaimers rang in Hogmanay. Except none of it had happened because weather had forced them to cancel it all.

Why not gut the paper for publishing a dumb feature?

... what does it matter if what is printed is obviously satire or just commentary. it is obviously not a serious, academic article. lifestyle piece.

who cares if a writer lied in a piece that nobody was taking seriously anyway? i just have different standards for lifestyle pieces and actualy journalism.

and get fired for it

So if a piece reports on a cultural trend (let's say, early retirement, or teen abstinence, or, hell, hipsters in gyms), you don't care whether the trend actually exists?

oh come on. if you're publishing a paper on new year's day, your first-edition deadline is probably even earlier than usual - 9pm on new year's eve? 10pm at the latest. so what do you do? you've got a planned event that was 99% certain to take place, so you ... extemporise. and then you very swiftly change it for second and third editions (if indeed you're lucky enough to get 'em on NYE).

hstencil, whether knowingly or not, makes the same point more simply. daily papers have edition deadlines. sometimes you have to make a call and run with it. this is not the same as fabricating quotes.

Why not gut the paper for publishing a dumb feature?

if you mean "what a dreadful idea for a feature", i agree. if that's what passes for a cover story at the VV, it needs to have a good ol' look at itself.

if you mean "they should have known it was all made up" - as some people have suggested - then, er, how? you really think the fact-checkers should ring up every person ever quoted in a newspaper to be sure they've not been misquoted? holy fuck.

you know that in the UK we don't have fact-checkers, right? that we poor beleaguered subs have to do that too? sure, i'm going to check the facts where possible, but come on: the onus is on the writer not to make up quotes.

nice caveat. i don't remember how it all went down but i'm not sure if the post screw-up was attributable to deadline, tho that could be right. of course, the voice ain't a daily...

??? what does this mean?

I thought one was either an assistant editor, associate editor, or a senior editor.

b-b-b-but the only alternative would be if it were down to, i dunno, sheer fucking insanity or something.

mind, as we know, sheer fucking insanity and journalism often go hand in hand :)

Honestly, no. It's a lifestyle piece, and I'm far more interested in seeing what the writer does with the piece than I am the fact value.

Early retirement seems like a regular ol' journalism piece to me.

Teen abstinence and hipsters in gyms? Don't need lifestyle writers to tell me that.

Lifestyle writers are there to entertain. They are funny or interesting, and that's all I expect.

xpost

And get fired, seconded. Or sometimes they resign first. How many other people have managed to write features, cover stories and straight reporting pieces without fabricating? What do you think their opinion is when they hear someone among them has just done it?

it's the kind of thing that happens to you when you demand a pay rise and they don't give you one. "let's see ... you're overpaid enough as it is ... how about 'deputy chief senior executive assistant managing associate editor'?"

"great. i'll be at lunch if you need me."

"we won't."

That's your liberal media outlet for you.

No wonder we have a bunch of right-wing idiots running our country....

hey :-O

blunt, the diff w/tabloids is that the reporters can always find someone to actually say the quotes they're using, so their asses are covered, even if that person is their girlfriend who met posh spice once and is identified as "am acquaintance of victoria beckham" ... ass-covering. so so important.

Let's see, I've been misquoted as many times as I've been interviewed, once a journalist called to ask if he could put a certain phrase he had thought about to my credit. Since then I've become a journalist myself.

On a sideline I'd be willing to talk about the "truth" found in right-wing politico editorials. But we're having fun ?

"just adoring the kid" is the same line of crap that was swallowed during the Ruth Shalit melodrama. And then she turned right around and burned Salon with more of her "errors."

I'm really curious to hear the opinions of editors on this thread--matos et al--would you run a Nick Sylvester piece or would you blacklist him? Is his "style" or voice or writing chops so unique that you can't live without him?

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/02/D8G3NUIG0.html

How about just "fire". There's no reason the guy needs to be blacklisted. He made a huge error, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't ever be able to work again.

I'm not saying he shouldn't work again. I'm saying who is willing to hire him or assign him, what are the parameters, what is going through your head, and why is he worth it? If you're Nick, what is your groveling strategy? I'm saying, with the Ruth Shalits of the world paving the way (her serial "inaccuracies" that continued after her flameout with the New Republic and the Washington Post), who wants to hire Nick and why? With all the things to worry about as an editor, I'm curious who wants to take on the baggage, and the rationale behind it. Maybe it's a lot more simple than I'm making it.