Well, we’ll disagree then. If you believe that people don’t ‘assume that the writer has academic expertise in the area’, I submit: this His book on education. Remember, he’s an economist by trade. And yet some of the ‘reviewers’ talk glowingly 'discusses American Education from pre-K’s to graduate schools; 9snip) politics and self-serving policies thereof. In 51 pages of notes, he supplies 1050 individual citations supporting his views and conclusions. "or suggest that every parent read it ‘even if you plan on sending your child to private school’, but another reviewer says
, so it would seem that certainly at least one person understands that his expertise has boundaries.
Even when something is on the Op/Ed page, many folks will read as if it’s gospel. As Arnold & Manny seem to have suggested since they both want specific declarations of misrepresentation of fact to be noted. If folks actually read these pieces with a critical eye, notations such as that wouldn’t be necessary either.
Hey. It’s the Pit. I was raving mad, and not patient enough to find a link. (Thank you, Arnold Winkelreid!)
Anyway, my thinking is this: Opinion is one thing. Gross factual error is another. Maybe the best solution is to let Sowell keep his job, but dock him a full column’s pay for each GROSS FACTUAL ERROR.
Also, the man should be forced to apologize to the public, in a column, for his GROSS FACTUAL ERROR.
I mean, this isn’t something like saying light takes 8 hours (it’s really 8 minutes) to reach us from the sun, or getting the numbers wrong on Bush’s tax plan. This is a major mistake, and I think on some level intentional. Sowell occasionally says some stuff I respect, but his hatred of environmentalism is profound. If he didn’t mean to blatantly lie to his readers, he certainly didn’t try to find the truth, because he genuinely thinks, “those damn frogs ain’t worth shit”.
And yeah, Cal Thomas. What a joke. Still syndicated here in GOP-land, still claiming the 1950’s were a golden era & Ronnie Reagan was a saint. He’s a twit.
A much better word. “Banned” implies an action by someone who can dictate policy. I would and did presume it to be the government in this case–perfectly reasonable given the OP’s mention of “[f]reedom of the press,” I think–and I assume it’s clear why that would be a bad thing. Whereas the syndication company getting fed up and firing the guy is pretty much irrelevant as a policy matter.
Thanks for the link, Noodles.
wring said:
Way to be snotty about something you admit was a valid request. :rolleyes:
Actually, the OP had nothing to do with the column as a whole–it had to do with one statement within that column. The statement seems to be as advertised–factually incorrect. Whether Sowell did this intentionally to support his own argument, is ignorant, or was trying to say something else and is a piss-poor writer, I don’t know.
I’ll agree that he–and any columnist who puts out horseshit presented as fact (as opposed to opinion, which is another matter)–should be called on it. As for whether he and they should be blacklisted from the press forever, it seems to me that exposing them as wrong does them sufficient damage–either they will refrain from presenting “facts” that aren’t, or they will lose all their credibility. (Whatever credibility they have, that is–taking anycolumnist’s matterial at face value strikes me as pretty silly.)
foolsguinea said:
I’d like to see this with policticians–fine 'em every time they lie or distort something. We could do away with taxes entirely…and with Bill Clinton’s share we could terraform Mars.
The point is this. Why should we even bother to have opinion columnists if we can’t expect them to at least attempt to be truthful in their writings? We don’t expect them to be sacked if they make a mistake regarding a minor detail, but repeated, intentional lying should be grounds for the columnist in question to be fired.
Why do we even have pundits? Why are we willing to pay them to give us their opinions? After all, people can do their own research and create their own political views, right? We have pundits because we trust them to present and interpret the facts in an honest manner, so that the audience can get a better understanding of the issues involved. If we just say that it’s ok for them to lie their asses off, then what’s the point?
Actually, columnists have significantly more legal protection for what they write than reporters do. A columnist could say things that I could never get away with in a news story, and it would withstand a legal challenge, because it’s his opinion, and is recognized (or should be; sometimes I have my doubts) by the public as such.
You raise an interesting point, but I believe you are confusing “pundits” with “journalists.” They are not the same. Think of it this way: Christiane Amanpour goes to see what’s happening, then reports to the public what she saw and heard, supposedly with no bias. George Will sees her report, maybe talks to some people in Washington about the situation, then says “heres what I think it mean.” He is not under any obligation to be onest in the conventional sense, since it is taken as a given that he is putting his own slant on things.
The confidence with which some pundits announce their opinions leads a lot of people to think the pundits must have a much deeper grasp of events and reality than anyone else. But that is a carefully cultivated illusion.
Furthermore, “lies” “facts” and “honesty” are things that can change depending on your point of view. Journalists and pundits make judgement calls everyday about what gets mentioned and what doesn’t, and their version becomes the “reality” that the public percieves. I personally read both the (conservative) Wall Street Journal and the (liberal) New York Times every day if possible. When those two publications agree on something, only then am I sure of it.
I agree with you that people could form their own political opinions. I think it’s a great idea. But it doesn’t happen much, in my experience. (i should add that I work as a reporter.)
** merely keeping the tone you’d personally set with your "Incidentally, do you have a citation to this article you read “part of?” I’d like to read the actual words, rather than your version of ‘something to this effect.’ "
A polite request would have been “link please”.
You took the time to make it an issue, I returned the favor, so feel free to apply the :rolleyes: to yourself personally first.
nice attempted defense. The linked statement was the basis of Sowell’s primary point about the environmentalist’s concerns. As such, and since it was a materially wrong basis, it’s a fine start.
Well, I’d first say that reviews on Amazon.com tend more towards subtly propping up or bashing the ideas of political writers. Choose any political book written by any author of any political stripe and you’ll see similar reviews. These reviewers are trying to add legitimacy to ideas they like or destroy ideas they don’t.
I also don’t see how Sowell being “an economist by trade” really matters in your book cite. I haven’t read the book, but the fact that he’s an economist isn’t an argument against the book. It’s heavily cited. The book could be complete BS for all I know, but it will be BS because it’s poorly thought out, not because he’s an economist and therefore shouldn’t write a book about education.
The book angle brings up another point. As I understand it, you want the person’s degree listed so readers can weigh the columnist’s credibility. Say Sowell writes a column about education. Given that he’s written several books on education, you could argue that listing his degree in economics would actully be misleading, since it implies no special knowledge of the educational system. To achieve your goal of fair disclosure, each columnist should reallly print a full CV with every column.
** the point was that the reviewers (not professionals) took him as an expert and didn’t question his data, which was my point.
See, if I know that you’re a geneticist by trade, and you present a thesis and support it with data, I’ll be more inclined to think you may have a clue what you’re talking about. If you’re an economist (just to pick one out of thin air), you may be able to read and understand data on the economy etc, but I’ll not necessarily take your word on genetics.
The point is, that without at least a small hint about their qualifications, we need to be our own detective/expert in that field. The listed example for instance - my last exposure to biology was in college many years ago and the only thing I remember from the experience is studying for the final I looked at the book and thought to myself “sub phylum of the class amphibia, well, hell, that can’t be important” , and it of course was question 7, page two. So, what to a lot of folks here was a glaring error would have passed right on by me - except that in this case I knew the guy was an economist, so would have looked for info about his data.
The fact that some one references ‘data’ doesn’t mean squat. To whit: this thread , handy posted ‘data’ about crime stats. Now, because I knew where the data came from, I was able to say that the data had been extrapolated out from a legitimate site and manipulated. But that’s cause it’s my field. See???
I guess this depends on how you define “expert”. None of the reviews said “this is a good book because it was written by an expert who has a degree in education.” Some of the reviews cited his research which some found good and some found lacking. How does this relate to his degree in economics? Or, more specifically, how does his non-education degree have any relation to the conclusions of his book? These reviews of his book back up what I said in my first post: the quality of a person’s ideas depend on the strength of their arguments, not their degree.
Again, I think it would actually be misleading to merely list his degree, given that he has written several books on education. We can argue over whether that makes him an “expert”, but it certainly shows he has more knowledge of the issue than a listing of his academic accomplishments would indicate. So a column by Sowell with a “Thomas Sowell has a Ph.D. in economics” doesn’t really help a reader at all.
But the real point is that columnists are paid for their opinions, not their expertise. Readers know this. And when columnists step over the line, they tend to get exposed either through letters to the editor or opposing Op/Eds. Listing a columnist’s degree causes as many problems as it solves.
Well, I guess there’s only a couple of ways to settle this, and I’ll let you choose ('cause I’m a good sport): it’s either paper/scissors/rock or we post our degrees and let the people decide.
wring, I have to say I’m confused. Are you saying that only people who have degrees in a specific field are qualified to write about it, or to be taken seriously about it? I’m not sure what you’re disagreeing with Zoff about.
I tried clicking on the link to check something, and I see that as of right now I get a " the page cannot be found" notice. Maybe they took Sowell out and shot him.
ITR champion said:
What is this “we” stuff? Newspapershave opinion columnists because they increase (or at least maintain) circulation, which thus leads to increased (or at least maintained) advertising and ad rates. Sowell will remain syndicated, and papers will carry his column, as long as they make money from it. If they stop making money with his column–or if they lose money because of it–they’ll cease carrying it.
So all you have to do is start a campaign to boycott newspapers that carry offending columnists. If enough people do it, the papers will drop them. Hell, I’ll even help you if we can go after L. Brent Bozell–the only use I’ve ever discovered for his columns is to use them to pick up dog turds.)
Lizard said:
Liberals are frequently full of shit. Conservatives are also frequently full of shit. There is no reason to think that when they agree on something they aren’t managing to be full of shit together, you know.
wring said:
And here I didn’t realize you fancied yourself the Miss Manners of the board.
Attempted defense of what, Miss Manners? Of Sowell? In what way? Of myself? Again, in what way? Of the column in general? The OP had nothing to do with the column in general–as should be obvious, since there was no link–nor does this thread have anything in particular to do with Sowell’s opinions on environmentalists. Of the statement we were actually dealing with? Maybe you should try reading my previous post–I lable the statement directly as “factually incorrect,” and indirectly as “horseshit presented as fact” and ““facts” that aren’t.” Boy, I’d hate to see what I’d write if I wasn’t “defen[ding]” it.
And perhaps you should reread the column, too, assuming you can find a copy–it should be obvious that Sowell’s opinions have nothing to do with the statement. It was a throw-away line designed to bolster the argument, but certainly the argument didn’t depend on it.
Well, kaylasdad99, way to read too much into my post. You get the “Jump to Conclusions Award” for 2001! :rolleyes: back at you, “pal.”
My, aren’t we cynical. Since this thread is about “opinion,” I suppose you could find reasons to believe or NOT believe anything you wish, and it would be legitimate (if not necessarily fair.)
An opinion based on facts is worth paying for. An opinion based on incorrect information is not worth paying for. Sowell’s column was not worth paying for. Dock him whatever he was paid for that column and warn him to be careful next time.
Has anyone emailed him or his syndicate about his mistake?
Recognizing that the “I was only joking” defense is regarded (rightly) as poor form around here, I herewith offer my apology to you, Lizard, for my remarks that may have been construed as impugning your professionalism. I failed to make my humorous intent clear, and I regret the hurt you may have felt as a result of my failure.
(the following is not to be considered a retraction of the preceding apology, but is an offering about what I sometimes find to be an amusing method of goofing around) I hold some strong opinions about my personal preferences, and I sometimes amuse myself by taking opportunities to declaim my preferences as though they are Absolute Truth ™, and that to disagree with them is to contradict the fiats of the Lord Most High. Thus, in the past, this Board has seen me to declare local television news to be useless drivel, the Dodgers to be the only authentic baseball team such that God only counts their wins as valid contests (although not so much since they were bought by The Prince of Darkness :D), and that a newspaper is merely a life support system for a set of comic strips. In the future, I may be saying that oysters are not food, and that to decaffeinate coffee is to perpetrate an abomination in the sight of the Lord. Please don’t interpret any of these as meaning that I actually believe that, say, the political title of “Lord” has any actual validity when applied to the concept of the Divine. In return, I will make efforts to make my humorous intent clear, when it is there.
