Here is the correct link to Kevin Drum on McMegan (I would fix the link in Tim’s posts but I’m never sure of the ethics of editing other people’s posts except to resize YouTube embeds). Personally, I think Drum is a jackass for not mentioning McArdle’s own tortured history with factual accuracy. I’ve never understood why he accords her as much respect as he does. I guess you already know that I think the paid blogosphere, with a few exceptions, is a big circle jerk.
Anywho, these paragraphs from McMegan are rich in ironic nutrition:
This is what fact checkers are for, and I don’t understand why book publishers don’t have them. They cost money, to be sure–but not that much money….A quarter of a million dollars a year would get you the world’s finest staff of crack fact checkers.
….Presumably the answer is that it isn’t economic: readers don’t care, and indeed rarely learn; there’s no money in preventing the occasional catastrophe []. But then one must turn the question around: why do magazines like The Economist, the New Yorker, and yes, The Atlantic, employ fact checkers? Our readers are the potential consumers of books like the one that the Economist is reviewing; do they care less about accuracy in their books than in their magazine articles?
Heh indeedy.
Steeplejack
That is some world-class lack of self-awareness.
cleek
i honestly don’t see how the non-paid is any different.
Ash Can
The poor thing.
meh
Best Comment in that thread so far:
Q – Does the Atlantic employ factcheckers?
A – Yes, to get the Starbucks.
Poopyman
Holy crap! Does she ever read what she writes? Perhaps a better question is: Does she comprehend what she writes?
(ETA: Apparently, the question is rhetorical).
BGinCHI
Presumably she thinks “a quarter million dollars” would buy you 250,000 fact checkers.
Then she imagines them chained to desks like galley slaves.
aimai
Yes, the Kevin Drum piece is too tongue in cheek to have any meaning. Nothing less than Susan of Texas or Roy of Alicublog level snark will do for McMegan and her employers.
aimai
You Don't Say
@cleek: It’s a distinction without a difference but DougJ had to make it in order to exclude himself.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Crack facts. Those are apparently the kind of facts in which McMegan deals, and who needs checkers for those?
Stillwater
OT – Greenwald has a post up about Wikileaks stuff. There are reports that DOJ can’t find the Manning-Assange conspiratorial link necessary to prosecute Assange. Apparently they’ve come to the conclusion that Manning stole then uploaded the cables, etc., without any direct contact with anyone at WL. So the DOJ case is stalled. GG gives the likely options going forward.
Another amusing, slightly ironic tidbit is that the NYTimes is apparently creating a site for whistleblowers to anonymously upload stolen classified documents modeled after the WL site. Heh.
James Joyner
I doubt the Atlantic fact checks its blogs. If they do, they’re not really blogs.
As to the opening semi-question: It’s always permissible to edit co-bloggers’ posts for bad links and obvious typos.
Otherwise, it’s a matter of blog style. At OTB, I encourage others to add signed updates to each other’s posts. Some blogs prefer responses in separate posts.
JGabriel
McMegan:
What WE, McMeggie? Clearly, you never employ them.
.
Superluminar
um…Megan? I believe that’s called projection.
well then, we may as well not bother preventing any of them /douchehat.
mistermix
@DougJ – My guess that the reason that KD is decent to McArdle is that attacking her hard would get him written off as unserious, since MJ is already on the Village watchlist as a sleeper cell of unserious leftism.
@James Joyner: I would bet you that someone other than the writer reads blogs at, e.g., the NYT and suggests factual corrections, but I can’t prove it. The biggest win in fact checking or accuracy or whatever you want to call it is simply having someone else read your work. And there’s no reason why this can’t be done after the post has been published – you can always correct on the fly.
Villago Delenda Est
The thing with blogs is that you’ve got commenters, some of whom have expertise that the blogger does not, who will helpfully pillory the blogger if the blogger doesn’t have his or her ducks lined up.
A magazine columnist has no feedback mechanism like that.
Superluminar
@james joyner
Well, that’s certainly a prime example of McArdle “reasoning”. Please do tell us more about the psychology of the Bonobo chimp.
Tim F.
Joyner is right about blog etiquette and mostly right about the false juxtaposition between a blog and published work. For now most mixed-media outlets fact-check the stuff that runs off their press and let the bloggers blog.
My point had more to do with how McMegan is incredibly lazy and irresponsible with facts. That is certainly true when you compare her to a print journalist, but it is still true even among professional bloggers. She breezily fakes data like Ann Althouse makes every story about herself. It’s her signature trait.
Suffern ACE
A quarter million will get you 5 fact checkers at most. I would add five and hand the writers contracts witha clause that for every corrected fact, the writer recieves $500 less, and use those fines to pay the salaries of the fact checkers. The group would be budget neutral.
Cris
I hear what you’re saying, but that phrase really makes me bristle. It reminds me of the classic “A blog without comments isn’t a blog” line, on which I agree with Jeremy Keith: “I get pretty fed up of being judged based on how I set up my personal site.”
Sez you. I don’t disagree with you, but this is John’s house and it’s John’s rules. He can make that call if DougJ really cares to know.
Cris
I bet you can offshore it and get 20 for the same price.
jacy
@Suffern ACE:
How many days before McMegan had to sell her house to pay their salaries? Heck, she’d probably have to start selling her organs on the black market.
sukabi
I’m pretty sure that when McArdle talks about “fact checkers” she’s not talking about the same thing as we are… it seems the fact checkers she uses (if any at all) are given a predetermined set of “facts” and are then given the task of making sure those “facts” are indeed in the drivel she pushes out of her ass. See? “fact check” accomplished.
El Cid
Directly and indirectly, writers form a peer group with those in similar positions. Not just bloggers, and this is nothing new. And mutually they identify more with each other than various public-oriented responsibilities in journalism or writing, because this is what happens. Maybe they went to school together, or hang out at various functions, and the like. Or maybe indirectly via working for and hanging out with similar crowds that the others do.
Which can lead to a lot more hesitancy about blunt and clear characterizations of another’s work as shitty, dishonest, uninformed, and harmful to public discourse.
This niceness isn’t reserved for those with whom they don’t identify. Various political leaders, activists, and so forth.
The uppermost classes actually make sure that there are opportunities for this cultural and personal identification between the members of their own class as well as with various powerful decision makers and influential people for greater solidarity and less divergence. It’s an integral part of the system of uppermost class dominance in this country. (Which, by the way, is not in any way some “Marxist” viewpoint.) Of course they convince themselves that they’re on an important mission of exchanging ideas and so forth.
dmsilev
@James Joyner:
Err, what? What is inherent to blogging which is destroyed by fact-checkers?
I mean, in the special case of McArdle, fact-checking her blog would result in an essentially blank page, but in general?
dms
Redshift
@Tim F.: Yeah, the reason for mockery of her complaint is not that McMegan’s blog doesn’t have fact-checkers (since as Kevin Drum points out, magazine blogs generally don’t), it’s her frequent obvious errors and petulant refusal to take any responsibility for them when they are pointed out.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Huh? The New Yorker is so famous for its fact checkers that it is mentioned in Wikipedia:
Fact checking used to be standard in the publishing industry.
I don’t know if blogging at magazines is falling through some kind of crack, with some magazines seeing it as more like a personal journal than “official” writing that needs vetting.
jibeaux
This post has no statistics, only hypotheticals.
El Cid
There wouldn’t have to be such a need for discussions of “fact-checkers” if bloggers who really are treated as important sources or who work for prestigious publications — i.e., the completely worthless and unqualified McAddled has so often been an economics commentator on the public radio program “Marketplace” — weren’t so happy to spout shit that they had no idea whether or not it was true and accurate and fairly portrayed or not.
Tja
Sheesh, Doug – you read like one of those people didn’t realize “Fargo” was a comedy.
DougJ DougJson
@James Joyner:
Thanks.
DougJ DougJson
@Cris:
John’s not bossy about this, I was actually curious about standard blog etiquette, because I used to write for a blog with all kinds of insane arguments about this stuff.
DougJ DougJson
@El Cid:
Good comment. I agree with this explanation completely.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cris: I can beat that. I will contract to do for half the price, claim expenses to bring myself back to the original figure, and then not do anything.
kindness
Wait a minute!!! The Atlantic only uses their Fact Checkers for runs to Starbucks?!? Here I thought The Atlantic had some integrity! And all this time I thought The Atlantic had some taste!
If they had any REAL integrity or taste they would mail order beans from http://www.peets.com.
PS-don’t get me started on whether or not Sully has great taste or is less filling. I ain’t going there.
Erik Vanderhoff
Aren’t fact-checkers folks who call interviewees and say, “Did you say this?” I think McMegan’s confusing reporter-researchers with fact-checkers, which basically says a lot.
Surly Duff
Of course the Atlantic has fact checkers. Fact correcters are not available at this time, however.
Rob
McMegan is not just a blogger, she’s writes a ton of articles. And they are as mendacious as her blog posts.
glasnost
Does someone have a nice overarching summary of the various Megan McArdle inaccuracy controversies wrapped up in one nice link? Or even a series of links.
As someone who reads and enjoys both Balloon Juice and Megan McArdle, and hasn’t really paid too much attention to the bullcrap pie-fighting between them, I’d like the opportunity to decide if I give a shit about the substance behind the mcmegan mcmockery… using actual facts and events, rather than trying to decide who I like more.