Read this on the LA Times Web site earlier today. I can’t believe this got past the editor’s desk. You know the Pro-Unification lobby is working overtime in the U.S. when this kind of thing gets printed. (Sorry–Link may need a password, but registration is free).
What do you mean the reporter didn’t know his history. Where is the historical inaccuracy? I agree it might smell of political connections, but that isn’t what you mentioned in your post topic.
Yeah I’m confused too. It’s an overly sympathetic piece about political non-entity in Taiwan and fails to mention why he lost his job in the Presidential Office.
I agree. Where is the historical inaccuracy?
Note: you have to be registered to read it.
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This works for the NY Times, too, and probably several other newspapers online. The users of a (now extinct) messageboard decided to use that as a communal registration to save themselves trouble.
Let me echo the others here - exactly where is the “historical inaccuracy” in the article?
Mod lang–thanks for the help with the PW. Like I wrote in the first post, the site wants you to resiter first. But if you have a workaround . .
First–I never wrote
I have seen very pro-mainland and anti-Taiwan articles under an LA Times byline for many years.
Post subject: I hate it when reporters who don’t know history
Dear D,
When the above quotation is the subject of your thread it leads me to ask who doesn’t know history? Then I read the article you directed me to. I did not find one historical mistake in the entire article. I read it twice just to be sure. If the writer didn’t know his history then I would say his article should possess a historical inaccuracy, therefore proving your point. This would also then logically prove that the title which you gave this thread is correct.
While I’ve already admitted that the article is biased in its fluffy accounting of John Chang’s life, in no way did the author prove he didn’t know his history. It may not be as contextually sound or balanced as you would like, but what do you expect from a daily newspaper column with space limitations. All of the balance you would like to see added would take reams of paper to fill. It would be impossible to understand the context of politics in Taiwan and China in the last fifty years in 250 words or less. Perhaps you might contact the columnist and the two of you could begin a collaboration to write a book on John Chang’s life that is contextually correct. To conclude, if you had titled your thread differently perhaps I would have read the article looking for context as opposed to historical inaccuricies.
[quote=“mod lang”]
Login: salon
Password: tabletalk
This works for the NY Times, too, and probably several other newspapers online. The users of a (now extinct) messageboard decided to use that as a communal registration to save themselves trouble.
Let me echo the others here - exactly where is the “historical inaccuracy” in the article?[/quote]
Thanks that sounds useful. I’ll remeber it.
Chou
Dear mfaass,
I agree that the reporter could know the history behind this article and the title of this thread should be changed. Maybe the heading should have been changed to “I hate it when reporters don’t include history”? But space limitations in the LA Times? Obviously, you’ve never picked up the Sunday Edition (at least five pounds).
And even though it wasn’t what I originally wrote, might you consider that ignoring context IS inaccuracy because it misleads the reader? One doesn’t need reams of paper to address more of the background behind this issue. If I were writing a portrait on one of Batista’s grand-children and didn’t mention his family’s legacy in Cuba, or if Castro was suddenly portraying his grandfather as a hero, wouldn’t I as a reporter have a duty to ask some deeper questions? Might the reporter ask if possibly John Chang is yet another Mainland descendent who is being courted by Mainland China?
Remember that as a reporter what you leave out says as much as what you include.
I agree with your principle that omission can lead to gaps in information. I do try and look for biases in writing. It is in every writer’s nature to be biased depending on their personal beliefs and background. Thus, everything ever written is subject to inaccuricies, as you might term them.
For this I would point to the line where the author refers to CKS as a legendary figure. I know from having read other sources that the label of “legendary” might be a bit misplaced. The reading audience cannot merely allow itself to be spoon-fed by any article, writer, or newspaper. It is the reader’s responsbility to read other articles and points of view in order to have a larger, broader, and more exhaustive understanding of context. In this manner it is the reader, not the writer, who will be able to fill in the information gaps that will invariably appear in any given article. Thus, while you might want to haul this particular columnist over the coals, I thought his bias, as a result of his writing and ommissions, was fairly easy to see, and therefore not particularly noteworthy.
and, no I’ve never read the LA Times. I’m not from around there.