Ahem.
In Saturdays Daily Mail, there is a new story, a backstage tale covering "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at Windsor. This is where my sister works, and she is ah wow even mentioned. By name.
Anyway, she rings my mum and says "Oh check your paper, I'm in it, its funny how wrong it is!" so yesterday I get my mums version.
Apparently, the paper is inaccurate in so many ways!
"For one, Hilary is not Amanda's boss! Amanda is not the assistant wardrobe person, she's the actual wardrobe person. Hilary is wardrobe designer which is OK further up the chain tham A (Amanda is my sis icydk), but HOW MUCH MORE IS WRONG? Well, for one this story has 'H swamped in crowns and tinsel, and Amanda crying all day!" Well, I know Amanda is the least likely person to cry at all, never mind all day. But as my mum says "IT says that the Dwarf playing Dopey ws standing outside having a smoke!! How do we know that's even true either? What's the point? It's as if the papers just make it up to suit themselves!"
― M Grout (Mark Grout), Monday, 18 December 2006 10:36 (seventeen years ago) link
One time past, when my sis was a dance student, she was in a competition with her 'troupe' and came second. (Melv Bragg's Daughter ws winner, very avantg etc), anyway the local paper had arranged to come over for an interview, phoned my mum to arrange, and they had a long chat (I was there and was amazed at some of what was said), and the story was published without the arranged int and quotes like "Amanda was pleased to come second but had expected to win" !!
Mum: "How can we show that to the school?"
Me: "but you said that!"
Mum; "Not for the paper though"
Me: "She's a reporter! You did her job for her!"
ect...
― M Grout (Mark Grout), Monday, 18 December 2006 10:50 (seventeen years ago) link
For one, Hilary is not Amanda's boss! Amanda is not the assistant wardrobe person, she's the actual wardrobe person. Hilary is wardrobe designer which is OK further up the chain tham AI dunno, I get a little vexed when people use fairly minor factual errors like this to call into question the entire project of journalism as mostly fabricated. It's true, stuff like this happens all the time, but it's not a matter of people just making things up: it's a matter of people getting sent to write quick stories on events that don't necessarily cry out for national-politics levels of factual digging, and then missing a subtle cue here or there. If two people are working on wardrobe and one of them outranks the other, you call her the boss, or get mixed up on the "assistant" in a title -- this is sloppy journalism, I suppose, but it's more of a minor misunderstanding of subtle details than any kind of distortion of the truth.
― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 18 December 2006 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link
nabisco, yes I entirely agree.
It was more the "oh no" from my mum when 1) It's the Daily Mail (but they're all the same really) 2) How important is it really? 3) Every story is condensed for a)readibility b) the paper's MO.
― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 08:49 (seventeen years ago) link