Is the News & Record letters editor awake? Today the paper published another letter with factual errors, adding to the N&R's stellar history of publishing lies, plagiarism, factual errors, more errors of fact, more plagiarism, and more lies. The letters page editor simply seems incapable of or unconcerned with checking letters for accuracy. Printing an opinion is one thing; printing a statement of fact that is wrong is an endorsement of mendacity by our daily newspaper.
In today's letter, Paul Greene of Greensboro offers a quotation from Senator Barack Obama's presidential nomination acceptance speech. What Greene puts in quotation marks though is not what Obama said. Greene made it up.
Greene wrote:
Obama said, “They say (the Republicans) you must make it on your own. You want to go to college? You’re on you own. If you are down, pull yourself up by your own boot strings; you’re on your own.”
What Senator Obama actually said was:
For over two decades, he's [John McCain] subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy — give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is — you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps — even if you don't have boots. You're on your own.
This is the kind of distortion that demands a correction. The News & Record won't print one. They don't care for accuracy.
Paraphrases are forbidden in the "standards" of Roch's anal retentive world.
ReplyDeleteAren't we glad Roch has plenty to keep his anguished psyche busy these days, keeping him otherwise out of trouble?
Too bad his "standards" only work one way when it comes to political, social, and economic matters.
Bubba, go back to school.
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase means to restate, to rephrase with different words but keeping the same general intent.
To put into quotation marks indicates that the exact words of the speaker are used.
Had Mr. Greene left off the quotation marks, no problem.
Except that the "quotation" didn't get fact-checked.
Bubba,
ReplyDeleteWhat TL said. Additionally, instead of trying to make this about me, let's stay focused, shall we? Of the letters I have flagged, one was clearly not of a partisan matter. That the rest of the plagiarism and falsehoods come from writers with a right-wing perspective is simply a matter of fact. You may not like it, but it's not my doing.
Ah, the anal retentiveness (or is it just stupid arrogance?) of insisting technical definition that revolves around the use of quotation marks, all the while ignoring the fact that the LTTE writer accurately described the essence of what Obama said.
ReplyDeleteMore deflection in defense of the indefensible, coupled with the same old tired bullshit political rhetoric.
For God's sake, grow up, both of you.
Bubba, your disdain for intellectual rigor has long been established. That you once again would rise to offer laziness as a defense of mendacity is no surprise.
ReplyDelete"Bubba, your disdain for intellectual rigor has long been established."
ReplyDeleteReally?
You, of all people, lecturing me on "intellectual rigor", with your track record of anal retentiveness and knee jerk when the subject matter and discussion don't particularly favor your narrow mind?
Yeah, sure......