Misinformation is abhorrent...or...?

IMHO seems to me the most appropriate forum for this post: mods, please move if that felt appropriate.

I recently bought a copy of Bill Bryson’s latest book – a kind of sequel twenty years on, to his account of a tour around Britain, * Notes From a Small Island*: this new work titled * The Road to Little Dribbling * (ghastly title IMO). Essentially, more travels by Bill, around parts of Britain new to him. My verdict was: some interesting and worthwhile patches, but also a lot of Bryson’s standard, and IMO tediously oft-repeated and fairly lame, “shtick”. I knew that with my purchase, I was taking a risk – find that his books vary considerably in quality.

Incidences also, of another oft-encountered Bryson failing: wrong and erroneous “facts”. He happened to give a fair amount of attention to a hobby-type interest of mine, about which I consider myself reasonably well-informed: his writings on which contained several for-sure factual errors – on smallish points, but no less annoying to me for that.

Feeling rather irate about the informational sloppiness – I considered that I would be wasting my time writing complaints to Mr. B., care of his publisher; chose instead to vent my sentiments by posting about the matter, on a message board which I frequent, which is dedicated to the hobby concerned. I was a little surprised to get several responses politely disagreeing with me, and expressing the basic sentiment that Bryson is a travel writer and humorist, with no claim to being a scholar about the relevant subject, and no obligation to get his info about it meticulously right; these posters stated that they would not have been very perturbed to read this travel book by Bryson and come across this wrong info – notwithstanding that they’d instantly recognise it as wrong.

The Straight Dope’s declared mission, as we know well, is “fighting ignorance”. I would imagine that anyway the large majority of Dopers would strongly disagree with the consensus summarised above: that, with me, they’d feel with some passion, that if one is writing non-fiction – even light and humorous non-fiction – one should do one’s damnedest to get the information purveyed in it, right; and that spreading misinformation, even about arcane and trivial stuff, is BAD. The several independent dissentient voices told of above (from posters who seemed essentially intelligent and articulate), are causing me to wonder a little, whether these folk are actually onto something – whether the likes of us might sometimes be too “precious” about the perceived sacredness of correct info in even the smallest of things; whether we should basically be cool with the disregarding of accuracy about such minutiae, in the greater cause of a “fun” and arresting, and after all lightweight, read. Any thoughts on this, would be received with interest.

I gave up reading Bryson long ago, precisely because of his habit of repeating urban legends, common myths, and other “facts” without checking them. He’s sloppy and his style of humor is very well described as “shtiky.” He’s a hack.

I’m with you OP. If you’re going to say something as if it’s true, then it ought to be at least reasonably believed to be true.

I do think a writer like this could have it both ways by saying “The locals like to tell this apocryphal story:” and then repeat whatever legend they like, making it both interesting and factual.

Growing up, I heard an often-repeated story about my great-grandfather immigrating to America from Italy. The older I get, the less literal truth I think there is in it, largely because my grandfather is just like the people in the OP who don’t think facts should get in the way of a good story. Editing his father’s story would be right up his alley. However, it’s not only an entertaining story for holiday parties, it tells you a lot that is true about the attitudes of my family - if it didn’t happen that way, it should have. When I tell the stories, I add a humorous disclaimer to make it clear that I’m not sure how much is strictly factual.

I too like my information to be correct. But I have seen this attitude about travel writing before, that you are reading someone’s ~experience~, as opposed to a study.

It seems like a very low bar. When I read a travel book, I want more than some first impressions of someone who has done no homework, either before or after.

It’s one thing when a travel writer offers unresearched impressions. It’s another when Bryson repeats outright falsehoods just because he heard it somewhere.

The only Bryson I’ve read is One Summer: America, 1927. Enjoyed that thoroughly. How does that one stack up?

Makes me think of Paul Harvey, a radio host of decades a-gone. Charming fellow, quick with with a glurgey feel-good anecdote, but the poor damned s.o.b. repeated every single goddam urban legend that came across his desk. He had zero aptitude for fact-checking.

Nice guy, through and through…and a cesspool of infection when it came to diseased memes.

I reveled in the memoir of his childhood, The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid, which is fairly typical of the genre, even including the way he imagined himself as a kind of superhero with the ability to aim thunderbolts at his enemies–namely all the usual bêtes noires of childhood. Based on that, are you sure his allusions to urban legends aren’t mostly tongue-in-cheek? Then again, I haven’t read anything else by him, and it’s possible his work comes off better when listened to in audio format, which is what I did in the case of TLATOTTK.

Superb imagery. Thank you.

Aaahhhhh Paul Harvey, Mouthpiece of the Midwest. Many fond memories of sitting at Grandpa’s kitchen table eating lunch as a kid (braunschweiger and onion sandwiches with brown mustard yum!) while listening to Paul Harvey. Never really thought of him as a source of factual information as more of a source of entertaining anecdotes and “the REST…of the story”
Good Day!

For the OP, to me, as long as there is some sort of disclaimer then I wouldn’t be bothered by it at all, for this particular style and type of writing and if no disclaimer, then yes, I would be bothered by it but not to the extent you seem to be. it seems that what he wrote was essentially a journal of his travels and not a scientific paper. Yes, standards are very much lower.

Many bookstores list him in the “Travel” section, but Bill Bryson is not a travel author.
He is a humorist. (who often writes about travelling.)

To use an analogy from newpapers: a good paper is full of facts, written by professional reporters. But the paper may also print a gossip column, with “facts” which are only second-hand rumors overheard at cocktail parties. Readers don’t mind the mistakes, because that’s all they expect from that column.

Bill Bryson is the gossip columnist of travel writers. I know he’s not always accurate, but he’s still fun to read.

Sometimes, the essence of the story is more important than the facts.
(To see what I mean, stick with me for a minute : :slight_smile: )

Here’s an example:-- from Bryson’s autobiography, describing life in 1950’s America:

Now, maybe the facts aren’t all correct…Maybe the names of the refrigerator companies, or the claim that the freezer section was so small(by today’s standards, but large for 1950) that it held one container of ice cream.

But the essence of the story captures perfectly what Bryson is trying to tell me: the 1950’s were idyllic times for white middle-class America.
So,to answer the OP: Sometimes, I don’t mind if the facts are wrong, as long as the main point of the story is accurate.

This is all a very fine argument for fiction.

This reminds me of the Mike Daisey incident from 2012. He was performing a life monologue called “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” in which he told a story about going to China to visit factories making Apple products.

It turned out that he was fabricating some of the incidents from that monologue. His defense was, essentially, that a monologist or a storyteller isn’t held to the same standard of factuality as a journalist.

However, in my view, everything about how Daisey presented himself and his story encouraged viewers and listeners to believe that he was reporting literal truth. There was no disclaimer or anything. People who heard his story believed him literally.

There were some recent discussions in the press about a certain type of writer that believes that the form of the essay or something category of work like that is not obligated to hew to literal truth.

I can’t recall the name of the author or the book in questions, but as a writer and a journalist myself, I vehemently disagreed with it. If you are writing in a form that encourages the reader or listener or viewer to believe that you are reporting literally true facts, then you are obligated to report them diligently.

If you do not intend your story to be literal truth, there must be some kind of indication to the audience, a disclaimer or a label or a category or something that makes it clear. Some writers might claim that it diminishes the impact of their works, but that’s the point—fabrication can make a work more compelling.

The reason we look down upon it is because that compelling-ness comes at the price of fundamentally misleading the audience. It sounds better precisely *because[i/i] it’s a lie. That’s why people lie, after all. That’s why we discourage it, shame it, punish it.

Ah, I think I was thinking of “The Lifespan of a Fact” by John d’Agata.

I completely agree.

Either you write the truth, to the very best of your ability; or you write clear satire or opinion; or you label your work explicitly as fiction.

Or you are a fraud.

Thanks to everyone, for responses.

I greatly enjoyed that one, too – if there was misinformation therein, I’m not knowledgeable enough about that milieu to have picked up on it (ignorance, while deplorable, can sometimes be bliss?).

I find in the main, that I get more satisfaction and less irritation from those books of Bryson’s, in which he’s writing about a particular subject; as opposed to about his colossal-ego’d self and his own doings and experiences. I much liked the “1927” book – also, his uncharacteristically brief-and-compact book on Shakespeare.

The above-quoted echoes my sentiments, in the main – especially the bolded. Plus – if you’re trying to tell the truth as you see it, please take some trouble over making sure that your “cites” and examples, are accurate. The part of Bryson’s Little Dribbling cited in my OP, which bothered me: on the subject involved (of some general political and social interest), he was trying to give a factual account of an episode concerning it, some decades ago – in the course of which account, he adduced a few intended examples of what he was writing of, which were outright wrong; or right, except that they referred to true events happening many years before – and un-connected with – the episode which he meant to chronicle. I feel that if a writer is attempting an account of things, of this degree of seriousness – as opposed to highly vague-and-generalised blather – then he should take some care to make sure that his back-up illustrations are accurate and correct, rather than (as it would seem) Googling approximately-related stuff hastily and at random, and willy-nilly passing it on.

And there is the thing – often found in the transmission of knowledge, and / or “evidence-backed creeds” – of: “the propounder of such-and-such an idea, adduces in support of same, material about my area of expertise [let’s say for example, a particular Doper’s emblematic ‘Full Contact Origami’ ], which I know to be wrong. If he’s ignorant about this, which I know about; it reduces my trust in the correctness of his knowledge about other things which I don’t know about – and thus, in the whole of his ‘creed’.” (I suppose this both chimes in, and doesn’t, with my “if ignorance is bliss” thoughts above.)

I enjoyed that book. Bryson is a very entertaining writer.

“One Summer” has also been cited as containing factual errors.* For instance, he mentions Babe Ruth hitting three home runs in 1935 in his final major league game, for the Boston Braves.

Actually, that was not his last game. He went on to play in five more games for the Braves and closed out his career 0 for 13.

*See this brutal review.

That’s a fantastic review. I thought I might paste here my favorite quotation from it, but that proved to be impossible. It’s all gold.

Damn. You beat me to it. That review is awesome

It reminds me of what I experienced by listening to KGO in San Francisco, got into talk radio thanks to the gulf war. Stopped listening to it after it was taken over by wackadoodle right wingers.

Anyhow, Paul Harvey had his “Rest of the story” short show on a daily basis and even then I noticed what a right wing hack he was also, at least the radio station had the courtesy of airing right after Paul Harvey an antidote: Jim Hightower, populism at its best.

But of course it would not last, Hightower decided to complain in his very short daily show (compared to Harvey’s) about the Mouse (Disney) taking over ABC, and so Hightower was kicked out. And Harvey continued with no counter point.

Signaling IMHO the growth of even more nonsensical right wing ideas given time in the mainstream and heralding the slide to ignorance seen by many politicians on the right.

At least Hightower is still there on the Internet.