Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 17:42:28 -0400
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: SF fandom- reality check
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

Mike B. wrote:

> It's really amazing that anyone still believes anything they see on TV
> news, or hear on radio or read in the paper without checking it out for
> themsevles first.  Reporters are generally pretty ignorant people, and they
> aren't given enough time to educate themselves on the things they report on
> in most cases, even if they were interested in doing so.  The result is
> usually stories full of errors and omissions.

> There hasn't been a situation reported on yet where I knew anything about
> the subject already where they got it right, and sometimes they've been
> *wildly* wrong.

Yuppers.  Far too many reporters seem to be aggressively ignorant, and
proud of it.  They don't want to hear that they have very wrong ideas
about How Things Work, or that their "expert" is regarded by other
experts as a total fruitbat.  They also tend to take sides, for whatever
reason.

Once, the Washington Times did a hatchet job on WSFA as one of their
"Lookit the Funny People" series.  Tom Schaad was President at the time,
and he says that the reason he agreed to be interviewed was that the
reporter said, in effect, "If you don't talk to me, I'll just make it
up."  But it was *nothing* compared to what the same group did to the
SCA ....

--
Steve Smith                                    sgs at aginc dot net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."