[meteorite-list] New York Times Article

From: Brian Cox <searchingforfun_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 05:57:04 -0500
Message-ID: <F40A84D7661C41C5A21E79B3C25F40CF_at_BrianPC>

Hi All,

I'm just curious if anyone else has clicked on the author's name, William J.
Broad under the title of the article, "Black Market Trinkets From Space" and
waded through the thousands of articles that he has written alone or with up
to four other writers. I went back to April 2009 and this is the first
article I've found after searching through 15 long pages that has anything
to do with Meteorites. The majority of his articles over the past 2 years
have been in relationship to Nuclear Matters, such as Nuclear Arms in Iran,
and most recently the Nuclear Plants in Japan.

I'm curious why he even chose to write about Meteorites, and I am guessing
that his editor told him to write it as a ( fill-in-piece ) for the boring
$2.00 Tuesday paper, which doesn't get much circulation, since the majority
of readers get the "Weekender" as you've seen advertised on TV with Friday,
Saturday and Sunday or many people just get the Sunday Times. The bottom
line seems to be that he's almost what you might call a "Factory Line
Writer" that is given an assignment and then just rushes it out for print. I
don't know this as a fact about him, but it is fairly clear, and this is a
type of writing for many large papers, TV and radio and this is how it is
done. I'm not standing up for him and this horribly written article so
please no vicious emails, but just stating that he doesn't know anymore
about meteorites than a 5 year old does about how to launch the Spacelab.

It would be nice for him to write with an apology and corrections to his
article, but I can't hold my breathe that long. I'm too old to wait for it
and I'll probably be in my grave before that day comes. I feel the best way
to handle this is to contact his editor or in the best case scenario the
Editor in Chief to ask for a correction. The damage has unfortunately been
done and we can't change what has already been so poorly written.

All my best to all of you!

Have a great day and may a meteorite land in your yard.

Brian
Received on Wed 06 Apr 2011 06:57:04 AM PDT