Daily Ablution “scare quoted”
You know those dogs? The ones that collect the morning paper from the letter box and then savage them before delivering them to their masters feet. Well, that’s how I view Scott Burgess of the Daily Ablution. I mean that in a good way.
Anyhow, Scott has received an email from Paul Brown of the Guardian who is concerned that Scott makes a habit of fact checking peoples asses:
Dear Scott Burgess, Reporting the man from Microsoft seems to you to be somehow remiss, yet he is the man from America talking about his fellow Americans. You on the other hand seem free to “report” on what the press says and then add comments, a luxury news reporters are not allowed for good reason, because it leads to distortion of what people say. All the best Paul Brown
It might come as a surprise to Mr. Brown but Scott not only seems free to report on what the papers say and then add comments but he actually is free to do so. It is astonishing to me that Mr. Brown describes this situation as a luxury and I think it ridiculous that, somehow, news reporters are not allowed to behave in a similar manner. Frankly I thought they already did.
I mean, can you imagine the consequences of newspaper reporters writing articles that fact check the asses of their competitor papers? Heaven forefend that such a situation should exist in the 21st century. A situation that could only lead to….well what? Fact checking is about establishing facts and showing where paper spin has distorted those facts and I suggest that a little concerted ablution based reporting by our esteemed paper reporters would eventually lead to the emergence of a lot more facts, say, over breakfast when reading the morning paper.
We read Scott’s stuff because he provides an invaluable service to his visitors, doing all the hard work for them and reporting back the results. That does not mean that he can’t or won’t make mistakes but it is reporting, it is not a fecking luxury and I refuse to even entertain a Guardian reporter’s suggestion that Scott’s methods leads to a distortion of what people say.
Stop fact checking us because we are not allowed to fact check each other. That seems to be the measure of the correspondence.
Der fik de den – journalisterne.
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