[meteorite-list] Darryl's edited NYT letter

From: Michael Gilmer <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:56:32 -0400
Message-ID: <BANLkTikBCtUkr_q1W9Di+WHUD43naausQg_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Darryl and List,

You did great on the letter, and newspapers routinely edit such
letters for content and length. I too have written several in the
past that have been published and all of them were edited to some
degree - despite my efforts to make sure such letters pass the Strunk
& White test. But I do agree with you, Adam and Rob about editing out
key words and phrases. In a scientific context, a single word can be
critical and that is why when true scholarly publications do
occasionally print letters (like MAPS), such letters are not edited
with a casual hand - they appear in their entirety with their context
intact. The NYT has amply demonstrated that they have joined the
same camp as the National Enquirer and should be viewed as such.

And I am not going to automatically hold a writer in higher regard
because he has a Pulitzer or two. Apparently those don't mean as much
as they used to, or the award criteria has become more lax.

The damage has been done, but the meteorite community as a whole can
mitigate further damage by rebutting this nonsense at every
opportunity. The IMCA has now done so and several key figures in the
meteorite community have done so. The rest of the rank and file
collectors and dealers should post comments on blogs, post in forums,
and send letters to editors - to make sure that the truth of this
matter is heard.

I don't think this NYT piece was the end of the world as we know it,
but I don't think it should be trivialized either. Thankfully, the
general public seems to have forgotten it already. Right after the
article was published, the link was being widely posted and discussed
on Facebook. I spent the better part of an entire evening rebutting
the article in comment threads on Facebook alone. A barrage of emails
and forum posts followed that. But now the buzz seems to have died
and I have not seen or heard about it on any of the social networking
sites since the first day after publication. This is one of those
cases where the mass public's short attention span is a blessing. ;)

Best regards and happy huntings,

MikeG

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Gilmer - Galactic Stone & Ironworks Meteorites

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On 4/12/11, Darryl Pitt <darryl at dof3.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> So appreciated.
>
> Exactly right....and truth be told, I was embarrassed..Janine had to calm me
> down a bit this morning. ;-)
>
> All they had to do was leave in the term "hot" deserts and it would have
> been fine.
>
>
> Anyway, thank you, Rob!
>
>
>
> On Apr 12, 2011, at 3:40 PM, Matson, Robert D. wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> The main problem with the Times' editing of Darryl's submission is that
>> they altered his factually correct letter into an inaccurate (or at
>> best,
>> misleading) one. The following sentences appeared in the Times' edited
>> version:
>>
>> "As a result of the harvesting done by Bedouins, Berbers and others, 32
>> specimens from Mars and 43 specimens from the Moon have been discovered
>> in the deserts since the mid-1990s. The number of such specimens
>> recovered by scientists beforehand? Not one. Since the mid-1990s?
>> Just four."
>>
>> Now compare this with what Darryl actually submitted:
>>
>> " ... as a result of the harvesting done by Bedouins, Berbers and
>> others,
>> 32 istinct specimens of Mars and 43 distinct specimens of the Moon, as
>> well as other exotic samples, have been discovered in the hot deserts
>> since the mid-1990s---all of which have undergone study. Conversely, not
>> one such specimen was recovered by scientists IN THESE REGIONS [emphasis
>> mine] before this time, and since then scientists have recovered only
>> four such specimens."
>>
>> This significant error of omission invites researchers "in-the-know" to
>> accuse Darryl of being uninformed, and by inference unfairly calling
>> into question his credentials for opining on the subject. This is the
>> problem with journalists uneducated in scientific disciplines -- they
>> don't appreciate the nuances introduced by the seemingly harmless
>> removal of a word here, or a short phrase there. The sciences are not
>> like prose: every word is usually there for a reason.
>>
>> --Rob
>>
>>
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--

Received on Tue 12 Apr 2011 04:56:32 PM PDT