Ever wondered how the fact-checking process works? Well wonder no longer. The Columbia Journalism Review posted an excerpt from their recently published Art of Making Magazines collection, and it explains The New Yorker’s workflow as well as the perils of “Shoot-the-Fact-Checker Syndrome.”
How Fact-Checking Works
Summer Reads; Southern Reads
For me, the call of Southern literature comes strongest in the dog days of summer, when the days are long and when the sun is burning. This year, it seems that the literary community has taken note: five representatives from the region’s “great independent bookstores” have gotten together to recommend the Southern books they’re craziest about this year.
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Kafka’s Wound: A Multimedia Treat
The London Review of Books sought out Will Self to help create “a digital literary work that pushed the boundaries of the literary essay well beyond its traditional form.” The effort, they hoped, would “loosen and enhance the structure of the essay, changing the way the reader interacts with the text.” Well, consider that a success. Behold, “Kafka’s Wound” in all its multimedia glory. [Bonus: Millions readers in the UK can catch Will Self’s discussion of the digital essay on September 6th.]
The Full Stop Book Club
Hot new online magazine Full Stop has chosen The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books as its inaugural book club selection. The discussion will be happening all this week.
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Getcha Popcorn Ready
Think of this as the film world’s equivalent of our Great Book Preview: Metacritic pores over the “50 Most-Anticipated Films” of the coming year.
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a multitude of drops
There is a very long trailer for the Cloud Atlas movie, which comes out in the fall. Unfortunately, Kevin Bacon isn’t in it.
One of the most fascinating glimpses into fact-checking is THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT, which consists of the text of an article that John D’Agata published in THE BELIEVER and his often cranky but funny exchanges with the magazine’s fact checker, Jim Fingal; the email exchanges between D’Agata and Fingal take up much of the book than does the original article. (Complicating this whole question is that some accounts say that the exchanges in the book were written to represent the process of fact-checking, rather than being exactly the exchanges between D’Agata and Fingal.) Still, for journalism/writing/editing geeks, it’s a fascinating book.
I know this pushes the discussion away from the original post just a bit (fact-checking) but carrying this even further, into the whole question of “what is fact” in non-fiction, is an essay that appears on TriQuarterly, “The Facts of the Matter.”
Great point, Joe. Here’s that article in case anybody else is curious: http://triquarterly.org/essay/facts-matter
Also here’s Millions staffer Mark O’Connell’s review of THE LIFESPAN OF A FACT: https://www.themillions.com/2012/03/cool-story-bro-the-provocations-of-john-dagata.html