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March 19, 2004
Sloppy Jerks
Everyone knows my general distase for the local paper. In an article about Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit Distict Attorney candidate Keith Adams the AJC notes in a headline that Name mix-up irks DA candidate Keith Adams. Apparently "[an] attorney with the same last name has been criticized for handling of case in Gwinnett."
Hmm, I wonder if the AJC has anything to do with it, noting in this March 9th piece "Adams [was] a candidate to replace former DeKalb DA J. Tom Morgan before another lawyer got the job."
Now, I understand that there were two Adams who petitioned the Governor to be appointed interim DA. However, it's one thing to petition the governor to be appointed DA (any crazy can do it), and it's totally another thing to plunk down your money and actually run for the office. The AJC reporter called Herb Adams, the one who may be indicted a "candidate" even though he is not technically a candidate in the sense he is running for office.
The possibility for confusion on a story like this is enormous. It's another reason not to trust anything you read in the AJC or any other newspaper. Too many reporters have a laziness that manifests itself in either not getting the facts right (as in this case) or just accepting whatever spin parties trying to influence the news tell them and not sorting out to figure out if it's true.
A great example of the latter is redistricting. The CW is that the Republicans are perfectly happy with the court redistricting maps. Tell that to Glenn Richardson and Eric Johnson, who are doing everything they can to pass their own maps and will be up til sine die on day 40. Sheesh!
Posted by Chris at March 19, 2004 04:30 AM
Comments
Good point on not trusting newspapers. I liked the way Michael Crichton (and probably others) phrased it recently. I forget the exact words, but they spoke of the concept of the selective amnesia we all experience when reading newspaper. For example, say the AJC did a feature on Johnny Marr, and got several minor (but to you, the reader, perhaps major) details wrong. You'd say, "what idiots!" and then continue to uncritically accept the facts given in the next page's article on the Middle East. Makes sense!
Posted by: zacharias d smytkowski at March 19, 2004 09:31 AM
Isn't generalizing an industry-wide trend from one wrong fact a bit of a logic no-no. Newspapers, much more than TV or other mass media, still have a high level of accuracy, especially given the tens of thousands of facts each large metro publishes each day. It sounds like the AJC screwed up here, but what does that have to do with the general accuracy of the Wichita Eagle or the Honolulu Advertiser or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? Where should we get our news if not from newspapers? The net? TV? Blogs?Or am I taking you too literally, Chris.
Posted by: Phillip Reese at March 26, 2004 12:23 AM
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