Sparked by the story behind The New York Times' 60,000th edition, reflections on the importance of fighting for accuracy, whether days, years or even a century after the botched fact.
The brilliant Kathryn Schulz wrote a book, "Being Wrong," that very much touched on the part of the post about the value of coming clean. In particular, I think of how she details Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's policy of issuing exhaustive reports on their errors.
Note this section. "The instant the patient drew attention to the mistake, the surgeon realized what had happened, explained it as thoroughly as possible, and - although the act must have felt woefully inadequate - apologized. He then contacted the chief of his department and Paul Levy, the hospital's CEO, and told them about the situation. Reviewing the case, Levy and other BIDMC higher-ups decided that the mistake was serious enough that both the hospital and the community it served deserved to know what had happened. In very short order, they emailed the entire hospital staff - some 5,000 people - and sent a press release about the incident to local media outlets.
"Needless to say, this uncommon reaction didn't come out of nowhere. In Januray 2008, six months before the botched surgery, Levy, his board, and his staff made a kind of New Year's Resolution: by January 1, 2012, they would eliminate all preventable medical harm....."
Later in the chapter, Schulz writes, "So we can't catch all our errors, or catch up to error in general. Nor, however, can we give up the chase, since the price of doing so - in lives, money, and sheer folly - is simply too steep. Our only choice, then, is to keep living with wrongness, in all its strangely evasive omnipresence."
As you can see, Schulz does not believe the way to avoid error is to deny it.
Detail can also drive you batty, so if we think we have an above-average ability to detect errors, we must come up with a narrative for that that isn't wholly depressing. Even just thinking that we somehow just have the skill isn't reassuring. It doesn't seem like a lot to latch on to, doesn't give us confidence we will catch all the errors we want to. We are at least somewhat ahead of the game if we painstakingly read everything in front of us, if we don't cut corners. But there is more a feeling of invincibility if we are able to analyze a situation and cross-check to find errors. That's one reason I like statistics. When I find errors, it's not because I see them, per se, it's because I am looking at something else, tangentially related, and say, "Wait a second...."
There's nor real trick to noticing the wrong year that has to do with working smarter, that I can see. I mean, I guess one could argue that those who think about the New Year more, who are generally cognizant of the outside world, would be more likely to catch it, but it's mostly just about reading everything in front of them and about dumb luck. And reading everything can be really tedious. I'm not going to say there haven't been times that I checked thoroughly just because I had to, just because I was competitive, or afraid of my boss, or of the consequences if I missed that error. I'm not going to say that I haven't checked thoroughly sometimes hating it. But I prefer that not to be the case.
Catching that a New York Times edition wasn't the 50,000th seems less dehumanizing than spotting the wrong year on the masthead. One could have worked back and thought about the question and questioned the accuracy. I know I'm not the only person who thinks sometimes in terms of the number of days that have passed, who is familiar with that metric. A friend and I both independently talked about our excitement as we approached our 10,000th day, for example.
I'm very surprised by the current averred low rate of New Year's Resolutions. When people ask me what mine will be, they always seem shocked that I won't be making one, and that I don't approve of the idea. I guess I should be hanging out with Inside Edge people.
Also, the angels are in the details. Well written essay in favor of the thesis that working for accuracy requires being vigilant for catching errors and ready to correct mistakes. The NYT has a lot to be proud of in my opinion. It's beautifully written. It is biased in many ways. And yet it seems to steadily work on answering the objections about its biases and seems to work to improve and lessen its blind spots.
Thanks, Patti....yes, NYT does good work but is far from perfect. The Jayson Blair saga was a low point (he was fabricating coverage before the lid was blown off that nonsense.) So important to 'fess up when we mess up. Hey, I'm a poet!
I've mostly given up trying to correct people. The distinction between "less" and "fewer" is already gone and any minute now it will be perfectly acceptable to use "I" as the object of a preposition. When I worked with law students I used to try to correct them, if only because some day they might run into another old fuddy duddy daughter of an English professor, but those days are long behind me.
But you know who does care about being correct (besides the two of us, of course)? Neil Steinberg. I message him on FB when I see a mistake and he thanks me and corrects it immediately. On the other hand, when he tried to correct a serious error in a New York Times Obituary (an obituary! in the paper of record!) he got nowhere. https://www.everygoddamnday.com/2018/05/i-think-story-is-more-important-than.html
and kudos to Neil for his doggedness in running down those tall tales by Mr. Tuck. An obit is typically the last word on someone's life, so it's especially important (even if after the fact) to set the record straight, at least somewhere.
I also enjoyed Neil's last line, after he noted the NY Times declined to correct the error (or falsehood) in the obit: "I'm open to the idea that, as people tend to do when they possess a bit of personal knowledge on a subject, I'm exaggerating the significance of this lapse. But it seemed at least worth mentioning. Truth is either important, or it's not."
I skimmed the obit and this was the part that Neil later debunked by confronting Tuck:
"He began hoodwinking Nixon as a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1950. While secretly backing Helen Gahagan Douglas for the United States Senate, he volunteered to work for the Republicans and made arrangements for a Nixon rally on campus. He hired an auditorium seating 2,000 people but neglected to publicize the event. Only 23 people showed up. When Nixon arrived, Mr. Tuck made a long-winded introduction and asked the candidate to speak on international monetary policy."
Well the Greg Watson story is somewhat analogous in terms of "attention to detail" but much more substantive. In 1982 while a sophomore at the University of Texas he noticed that the now 27th amendment to the US Constitution was proposed in 1792 but with no ratification time limit. Through his efforts it was finally ratified 201 years later in 1992. (The paper which he wrote as an assignment for his US Government class pointing out this fact received a "C" grade ... LOL).
From what I read it was a very important amendment since the Founders did not want members of Congress profiting from their public service (my how times have changed LOL) ... and if they did then the people could vote them out. But for some reason it was never ratified. Anyway, like you said attention to detail is important ... even if it takes a day, a week, a month or 200 years!
The brilliant Kathryn Schulz wrote a book, "Being Wrong," that very much touched on the part of the post about the value of coming clean. In particular, I think of how she details Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's policy of issuing exhaustive reports on their errors.
Note this section. "The instant the patient drew attention to the mistake, the surgeon realized what had happened, explained it as thoroughly as possible, and - although the act must have felt woefully inadequate - apologized. He then contacted the chief of his department and Paul Levy, the hospital's CEO, and told them about the situation. Reviewing the case, Levy and other BIDMC higher-ups decided that the mistake was serious enough that both the hospital and the community it served deserved to know what had happened. In very short order, they emailed the entire hospital staff - some 5,000 people - and sent a press release about the incident to local media outlets.
"Needless to say, this uncommon reaction didn't come out of nowhere. In Januray 2008, six months before the botched surgery, Levy, his board, and his staff made a kind of New Year's Resolution: by January 1, 2012, they would eliminate all preventable medical harm....."
Later in the chapter, Schulz writes, "So we can't catch all our errors, or catch up to error in general. Nor, however, can we give up the chase, since the price of doing so - in lives, money, and sheer folly - is simply too steep. Our only choice, then, is to keep living with wrongness, in all its strangely evasive omnipresence."
As you can see, Schulz does not believe the way to avoid error is to deny it.
Detail can also drive you batty, so if we think we have an above-average ability to detect errors, we must come up with a narrative for that that isn't wholly depressing. Even just thinking that we somehow just have the skill isn't reassuring. It doesn't seem like a lot to latch on to, doesn't give us confidence we will catch all the errors we want to. We are at least somewhat ahead of the game if we painstakingly read everything in front of us, if we don't cut corners. But there is more a feeling of invincibility if we are able to analyze a situation and cross-check to find errors. That's one reason I like statistics. When I find errors, it's not because I see them, per se, it's because I am looking at something else, tangentially related, and say, "Wait a second...."
There's nor real trick to noticing the wrong year that has to do with working smarter, that I can see. I mean, I guess one could argue that those who think about the New Year more, who are generally cognizant of the outside world, would be more likely to catch it, but it's mostly just about reading everything in front of them and about dumb luck. And reading everything can be really tedious. I'm not going to say there haven't been times that I checked thoroughly just because I had to, just because I was competitive, or afraid of my boss, or of the consequences if I missed that error. I'm not going to say that I haven't checked thoroughly sometimes hating it. But I prefer that not to be the case.
Catching that a New York Times edition wasn't the 50,000th seems less dehumanizing than spotting the wrong year on the masthead. One could have worked back and thought about the question and questioned the accuracy. I know I'm not the only person who thinks sometimes in terms of the number of days that have passed, who is familiar with that metric. A friend and I both independently talked about our excitement as we approached our 10,000th day, for example.
I'm very surprised by the current averred low rate of New Year's Resolutions. When people ask me what mine will be, they always seem shocked that I won't be making one, and that I don't approve of the idea. I guess I should be hanging out with Inside Edge people.
Good stuff, as Johnny Carson would declare. I likewise was stoked at the approach of my 10K day! That was over 10K days ago.
So there are three of us.
Also, the angels are in the details. Well written essay in favor of the thesis that working for accuracy requires being vigilant for catching errors and ready to correct mistakes. The NYT has a lot to be proud of in my opinion. It's beautifully written. It is biased in many ways. And yet it seems to steadily work on answering the objections about its biases and seems to work to improve and lessen its blind spots.
Thanks, Patti....yes, NYT does good work but is far from perfect. The Jayson Blair saga was a low point (he was fabricating coverage before the lid was blown off that nonsense.) So important to 'fess up when we mess up. Hey, I'm a poet!
I've mostly given up trying to correct people. The distinction between "less" and "fewer" is already gone and any minute now it will be perfectly acceptable to use "I" as the object of a preposition. When I worked with law students I used to try to correct them, if only because some day they might run into another old fuddy duddy daughter of an English professor, but those days are long behind me.
But you know who does care about being correct (besides the two of us, of course)? Neil Steinberg. I message him on FB when I see a mistake and he thanks me and corrects it immediately. On the other hand, when he tried to correct a serious error in a New York Times Obituary (an obituary! in the paper of record!) he got nowhere. https://www.everygoddamnday.com/2018/05/i-think-story-is-more-important-than.html
Terrific story--thank you for sharing, Ann!
and kudos to Neil for his doggedness in running down those tall tales by Mr. Tuck. An obit is typically the last word on someone's life, so it's especially important (even if after the fact) to set the record straight, at least somewhere.
I also enjoyed Neil's last line, after he noted the NY Times declined to correct the error (or falsehood) in the obit: "I'm open to the idea that, as people tend to do when they possess a bit of personal knowledge on a subject, I'm exaggerating the significance of this lapse. But it seemed at least worth mentioning. Truth is either important, or it's not."
I skimmed the obit and this was the part that Neil later debunked by confronting Tuck:
"He began hoodwinking Nixon as a student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1950. While secretly backing Helen Gahagan Douglas for the United States Senate, he volunteered to work for the Republicans and made arrangements for a Nixon rally on campus. He hired an auditorium seating 2,000 people but neglected to publicize the event. Only 23 people showed up. When Nixon arrived, Mr. Tuck made a long-winded introduction and asked the candidate to speak on international monetary policy."
Well the Greg Watson story is somewhat analogous in terms of "attention to detail" but much more substantive. In 1982 while a sophomore at the University of Texas he noticed that the now 27th amendment to the US Constitution was proposed in 1792 but with no ratification time limit. Through his efforts it was finally ratified 201 years later in 1992. (The paper which he wrote as an assignment for his US Government class pointing out this fact received a "C" grade ... LOL).
Fascinating; I tracked down this story on Newspapers.com. It's about Congress's ability to give itself a pay raise in between elections.
From what I read it was a very important amendment since the Founders did not want members of Congress profiting from their public service (my how times have changed LOL) ... and if they did then the people could vote them out. But for some reason it was never ratified. Anyway, like you said attention to detail is important ... even if it takes a day, a week, a month or 200 years!