Want the facts? Go buy a newspaper

March 21, 2007

Truman showing incorrect headline

President Harry S Truman shows a headline from the Chicago Tribune, a headline incorrectly calling the previous day’s election for Truman’s opponent.

If textbook fights, school curricula litigation and constant internet sniping got you thinking the clash between science and religion is a tough problem to work on, you should look at the clash between news gathering organizations and their financiers who argue that economics says news should be dead.

Not all should be doom and gloom in the news biz. Tim J. McGuire, dean of the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, argues that the delivery of the news still needs newspapers, and that newspaper economics show that profits can be produced by good, mainstream news outlets: “Writing off newspapers is premature, irresponsible.”

McGuire doesn’t ignore the bad news:

The circulation declines are undeniable. Some metropolitan newspapers have lost 10 percent of their circulation in the past three years. Classified revenues at some big newspapers are off by $50 million to $100 million in the same period. Layoffs and news-hole reductions are breathtaking. Short-sighted corporations are trying to cut their way to better profit margins.

He points to a different view:   Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Economics, First Amendment, Free market economics, Free speech, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Freedom of Information, Journalism, Newspapers, Political cartoons, Politics | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Chuck Colson hoaxed, or hoaxing; you should act

February 3, 2007

Chuck Colson claims to have found God, while in prison, and changed his ways. He’s got a newspaper column and radio feature called “Breakpoint” which generally covers issues at least tangentially related to ministry and church work.

But he’s either fallen victim to a great hoax, or he’s in on it and spread it.

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars alerted us to Colson’s “Breakpoint” commentary dated February 2, in which Colson repeats the disproven claims that Judge John E. Jones of the Middle District of Pennsylvania “plagiarized” significant portions of his decision. The charges are completely out of line, and have not held up under scrutiny. The claims were invented by people at the Discovery Institute who have no knowledge of how federal civil trials work, who misinterpreted trial procedures, and who made an invalid count of the words in the decision (failing to account for most of the 129 pages of the work for reasons that have never been explained).

If this catches you unaware of the issue, you can catch up with several posts. Attorney and Panda’s Thumb contributor Tim Sandefur explains how the charges are false here. Sandefur’s earlier explanation of the statistical errors behind the false claims is here (also at Panda’s Thumb).

You should act. If your local newspaper carries Colson’s column, notify them of the hoax. Give them the links above, and urge them to contact the press people at the National Center for Science Education for comment. Tell them they can quote Panda’s thumb, and that they can contact Sandefur, Brayton, or me, for comment.

Similarly, if your local radio station carries Colson’s commentaries, notify the station. Stations need to check to be sure they are not broadcasting hoaxes for license renewal reasons (though the FCC polices this issue rarely, and not often well).

Were Colson a practicing attorney, of course, he’d probably remember how federal trial procedures work, and not make such errors.

You can help him recall.

22 Comments | Accuracy, Creationism, Evolution, Hoaxes, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Justice, Plagiarism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Molly Ivins

January 31, 2007

Molly Ivins died tonight. It’s really quite unbelievable, to me.

Here’s the Austin American-Statesman story, “Molly Ivins, queen of liberal commentary, dies.”

Here’s a tribute from Editor & Publisher.  And a recent interview with E&P.

Molly Ivins graphic, copyright Tim Porter 2001

Graphic by Tim Porter, copyright 2001

4 Comments | Accuracy, Ethics, First Amendment, Journalism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Molly Ivins “still not dead”

January 27, 2007

Texas newspaper columnist Molly Ivins fights cancer in an Austin area hospital. Molly Ivins

Editor & Publisher:

Her assistant Betsy Moon says she may be able to go home Monday. She adds that those close to Ivins are “not sure what’s going to happen, but she’s very sick.”

The 62-year-old columnist had taken an earlier break from her syndicated column, but resumed writing earlier this month.

Last October she had suggested this headline to an E&P interviewer: “Molly Ivins Still Not Dead.”

Ivins’ column carries a strong defense of traditional American liberalism, the love for education, home, family and a good story. Fiercely dedicated to getting the story right when she was a beat reporter (I encountered her when she covered the Rocky Mountain area for the New York Times), Ivins contributed some of the best stories on politics over the past three decades that I have read her work.

Heal up, get back to work, Molly.

Also see:  “A ‘troop surge’ is not acceptable to most Americans,” Bangor (Maine) Daily News, January 17, 2007

Tip of the old White House scrub brush to Virgotext.

2 Comments | Accuracy, Freedom - Political, History, Journalism, Texas, Texas Freedom Network | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Mencken’s typewriter

January 10, 2007

Mencken's Corona Typewriter, Enoch Pratt Library

Mencken's Corona Typewriter, at the Mencken Room in the Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, Maryland

The typewriter that belonged to H. L. Mencken. Photo by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Maryland. [Update, April 15, 2007: The photo has moved, and is restricted by copyright; you may follow the links to view the original photo of the typewriter, at the site of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. E.D.]

Was this the machine upon which Mencken composed the Millard Fillmore/Bathtub hoax?  Perhaps.  It was used prior to 1930.

6 Comments | Fillmore's bathtub, H. L. Mencken, Hoaxes, Journalism, Newspapers | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

For the record: Pearceys’ slam at Judge Jones unwarranted

December 30, 2006

Rick and Nancy Pearcey — she the author of Christian best-seller Total Truth — have a blog called Pro-Existence. A few days ago I stumbled across the blog because they quoted me :

Praise: “University of Chicago geophysicist Raymond Pierrehumbert called Jones’ ruling a ‘masterpiece of wit, scholarship and clear thinking’ while lawyer Ed Darrell said the judge ‘wrote a masterful decision, a model for law students on how to decide a case based on the evidence presented.’ Time magazine said the ruling made Jones one of ‘the world’s most influential people’ in the category of ‘scientists and thinkers.'”

Well, they didn’t quote me directly: They borrowed the quote from a Discovery Institute paper. That’s only significant because such copying is, by their definition, the academic sin of “plagiarizing,” judging from the way they attempt to accuse a federal judge of not doing his duty. (And, if I had to guess, I’d guess they didn’t read the report, but instead copied their stuff from a report in WorldNet Daily — plagiarism of a copy! At least they linked, even if they didn’t attribute, to that publication.)

They borrowed the DI’s criticism of Judge John E. Johns, of the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, in his decision against a school board’s requiring intelligent design be inserted to the curriculum of the local schools. DI clumsily, and erroneously, labeled the decision a piece of plagiarism.

I wrote a response. The Pearceys have not seen fit to publish it (it’s a closely moderated blog, and apparently anything that they don’t like, or that calls them to Christian task for their errors, doesn’t make it). I post my response to the Pearcey’s below the fold. If they respond here, I won’t censor them.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment | Accuracy, Creationism, Ethics, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Journalism, Jurisprudence, Plagiarism | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub?

July 3, 2006

History is a study of what happened and why. Often, high school and college studies of history are ruined by rote memorization of a long list of dates with a couple of words describing an event. That is not history. Often, studies of history are ruined through unreliable sources.

H. L. Mencken, the famous newspaper columnist from Baltimore, wrote a column published December 28, 1917, about the history of the bathtub, specifically that it was rare in the U.S., and how President Millard Fillmore introduced it to the White House, thereby making bathtubs and bathing popular. The column was brilliant, and it was a complete fabrication, a hoax. Within two years, however, Mencken’s column had found its way to reference books, encyclopedias, and bad history books. Here is Mencken’s original column: “A Neglected Anniversary.”  [3/19/2009 – that link is dead; see Mencken’s column here.]  You can read a history of the hoax and its spread at this site, Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.

It’s a great story, about a do-nothing president, the press, and errors of history. To know the story, dates are unimportant. No one cares what years Fillmore was actually in office, no one cares exactly when Mencken’s column was published. Knowing lists of dates has never stopped a bad historian from reciting the erroneous claim that Millard Fillmore introduced the concept of bathing in a bathtub to the White House.

But now you know better.

This site is dedicated to knowing history, especially U.S. history, better.

Thank you for visiting. Noodle around, see what articles are here, leave some comments if you care to. Especially, if you find errors, leave a note of correction.

23 Comments | Bogus history, Fillmore's bathtub, Hoaxes, Journalism, Millard Fillmore, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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