Feb 25, 2011 The New Yorker’s fact checkers vs. religion and poetry
Vs. Religion
Lawrence Wright, who wrote the epic New Yorker story about Paul Haggis’s defection from the Church of Scientology (bullet points here), talks to Fresh Air about the fact-checking process for his article, which required five fact checkers and 971 queries to the organization. Listen here.
Vs. Poetry
Michael H. Miller at the New York Observer offers a quick review of the relationship between the New Yorker’s fact checkers and the poems (and poets) it publishes. Says the magazine’s current poetry editor, for instance:
“If by the line ‘the Swedes invented the fridge’ you mean that storage of spoilable food in a cold climate might be said as invented in the frigid climate of Sweden, then that’s … fine. It is and is not a fact.”
Read the rest here.