The Fact Checker's Bible
A Guide to Getting It Right
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
These days fact-checking can seem like a lost art. The Fact Checker's Bible arrives not a moment too soon: it is the first—and essential—guide to the important but increasingly neglected task of checking facts, whatever their source.
We are all overwhelmed with information that claims to be factual, but even the most punctilious researcher, writer, and journalist can sometimes get it wrong, so checking facts has become a more pressing task. Now Sarah Harrison Smith, former New Yorker fact checker and currently head of checking for The New York Times Magazine explains exactly how to:
*Reading for accuracy
*Determine what to check
*Research the facts
*Assess sources: people, newspapers and magazines, books, the Internet, etc.
*Check quotations
*Understand the legal liabilities
*Look out for and avoid the dangers of plagiarism
For everyone from students to journalists to editors, the methods and practices outlined in The Fact Checker’s Bible provide both a standard and a working manual for how to get the facts right.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
How do those incomparable fact-checkers at the New Yorker do it? Smith used to be one of them (she's now head fact-checker for the New York Times Magazine), and in this tidy little volume, she shares the secrets of her craft. And even for those don't aspire to be a journalist or researcher, Smith's tips are useful: in an information-logged world, we all ought to be able to determine the reliability of what we read. She opens with an excellent lesson in the art of skeptical reading ("do you find the article credible and persuasive?.... Occasionally, flat writing can be a tip-off that an author is parroting someone else's ideas"), and she offers a useful discussion of fact-checking procedures at some top newspapers and magazines and helpful (though not comprehensive) lists of reliable resources in subjects ranging from films to wine. Much of the book, however, is for professionals, and the journalists, fact-checkers, researchers and editors at whom this is aimed should find it nearly indispensable.