Publishers Say 'Fact-Checking Too Costly' 403
Mr. Ghost writes "Members of the book publishing industry say that profit margins are too small to fact check "non-fiction" books. Instead they rely on the "honesty" of the authors submitting the book. This has come to a head with the revelation from the author of "Million Little Pieces" that he lied about the accounts in his memoirs."
AI people have a job to do.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:AI people have a job to do.... (Score:5, Funny)
Already exists --- we just have to ask google.
For example: "Global warming is true" [google.co.nz] --- 774 results. "Global warming is false" [google.co.nz] --- 352 results. Case closed!
(in other controversial results, evolution wins by 76,000 to 21,000 and Santa Claus is clearly [google.co.nz] real [google.co.nz].)
Re:AI people have a job to do.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:AI people have a job to do.... (Score:3, Funny)
UPDATE/REVISION (Score:3, Funny)
We ask that you ignore our statement yesterday about "fact-checking [being] too costly" to do. As many have pointed out, it isn't expensive or hard at all to check your facts. In today's world there are many electronic solutions to these problems.
Once again, we apologize for misleading you, fact-checking is fairly cheap.
Yours Always,
Publishers Of America
(Not Affiliated With American Publishers)
Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, come on, publishers. What are you doing with my $200 dollars? Last term alone I paid over $600 to book publishers, and you're telling me you can't guarantee their accuracy with this? That's sadly pathetic. I could hire someone to read the text for accuracy myself after a few terms making this kind of money.
Re:Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the essential difference between a free market and a monopoly. In a free market, competition will set the price near the cost of producing the book. In a monopoly market, the monopoly owner sets the price at the point where many consumers can just barely afford the product, because that's what maximizes total revenue. In one situation, the cost of production has something to do with the price, in the other it has nothing to do with the price.
So, for all you know, and for all you can do, the publishers may be snorting coke for your money. It's not like you can legally obtain a version of that specific book from someone who's actually checked the facts, or who's selling it for $5 when all they're doing is paying for a print run.
I tried to let this go... (Score:3, Informative)
In all actuality, this is NOT a monopoly situation, it a case of free market economics interfacing with copyright law. A teacher has to choose a single book, which is protected under copyright, once that is chosen, there are no alternatives. This might result in a textbook having a higher cost than anticipated, but I doubt it. The professor, however,
Re:I tried to let this go... (Score:3, Informative)
As one who worked in both editing and academia, the cost of textbooks is the result of the publishers desire to get as much money from the student (purchaser) as pos
Re:Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Because if they didn't have to pay for the creation of the material, you believe they would pay for the fact checking? Or perhaps there would be a more expensive version, "with fact checking"? Take away the IP protection and the publisher has no choice but to create content the cheapest way possible, and that means n
Re:Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
The breadth of a monopoly is dependent on the product specification, not on any specific inherent breadth attribute.
For example, a monopoly on aluminium is not a monopoly on construction materials. It is nevertheless a monopoly, and the economic effect remains in effect. The aluminium does not get produced and sold at the most competetive and economically efficient price. Any and all products whose
Re:Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It's amazing how hard core socialist, leftist professors suddenly turn hard core capitalist and require you to purchase their $85 book.
2) I had one of those classes and the professor -never even referred to the damn book one time all semester-.
---
After a couple semesters of this, I started xeroxing the books in the school library (5 cents a copy- 2 pages a copy- about $12 to $15 to copy a $85 book.
---
I think that the professors should create a wiki for each class- let anyone update it- they
Re:Wait a minute, this is Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
So the professors are practicing what they preached. They are earning money and they are paying taxes.
I think you confused your socialist teachers with budhist teachers. Budhists believe in a life lived simply and humbly without accumulating wealth. Christ tought the same thing but christians as a g
Well (Score:2)
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they'll spell check too
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad she tore into him; he deserved that. Still, why wasn't that her first reaction? What do women really want, then? The cynic in me says that when women complain about fi
Re:Well (Score:2)
Still, why wasn't that her first reaction?
I think Oprah is just a naturally positive person. I also think that she thought the show's research team had done enough research on the book before she aired the original book club episode. I think she should be somewhat angry at her own research crew also; they should have been able to find out that the book wasn't
Re:Well (Score:2)
Unfortunately, it took me a long time to realize that the truth does not = something nice.
People love their illusions and hate the people who take them away.
In Oprah's case, her hate/anger manifested itself when she lashed out at Frey and the publisher. Hopefully, she saved some of that hate/anger for herself, so that it will reinforce whatever lesson she learns.
Oprah? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does anyone care about what Oprah does or thinks? I'm fascinated why anyone considers her more compelling or important than say, Madonna, Prince Charles, or Winnie the Pooh?
Re:Oprah? (Score:4, Funny)
--Oprah-Wan Kenobi.
Re:Oprah? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because Madonna keeps reinventing herself too much to keep a consistent fan base (she has always been able to keep a large fan base though). In addition Madonna doesn't seem nearly as active in confronting issues of every day Americans and increasing the literacy of average Americans.
Prince Charles
Unlike Charles she wasn't born into success, and not only did she work her way to where she is now but she did it while being black and a woman. She was born to an unmarried coal miner and housemaid and went from that to being a media mogul and controlling top selling book lists.
Winnie the Pooh
Unlike Winnie, she exists. Also she in not a Pooh, and I have yet to know someone that can relate to a Pooh better then another human.
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: what women want (Score:3, Informative)
They want what you want as well: Excitement, passion, and someone they can respect. Would you want a woman who is affraid to tell you what they think? Would you want a woman who thinks sex is somthing
Re:Who really gives a fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who really gives a fuck? (Score:2)
Of all the problems out there in this world, this ranks on my list well below farts that turn out not to be all-gas.
Re:Who really gives a fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Along these lines, Ken Lay's trial has now begun. A theme of his defense is that he was just a good old boy who was misled by evildoers within Enron. Whether or not that's the case
Issues like this pop up fairly often. When does an individual obtain so much power and influence that it becomes not only irresponsible but legally actionable for that person to say "I was misled; and therefore misled you"? One could say, "well, we're all responsible for our own investments," and I guess that's true. All of us reading Slashdot are clearly SuperWise folk who assiduously manage our investments, balance our checkbooks, and clear the cookies out of our browsers every day. But our dear Grandma Gertrude,
In one extreme limit, we protect Grandma Gertrude by creating an oppressive nanny state, in which regulations are thick and heavy
What I am suggesting here is that it might be far more effective to "hang" Oprah --- to stomp her ratings, dent her popularity, deflate her ego --- than it would be to point out that the author of "million little pieces" is an exaggerator. Similarly, it might be more effective to toss Ken Lay in the brig than to contemplate a better regulatory regime.
Re:Who really gives a fuck? (Score:3, Informative)
Accountancy rules are incredibly complicated, and as a result, allow distortions to be created. When a rule is complicated, the number of people who are likely to understand it is less than if the rule is simple. These experts are then typically employed by large corporations and accountancy firms, in part because they want to ensure compliance, but also because they want the accounts to tell the best story.
Accounts ar
Check out this story (Score:3, Insightful)
And perhaps even if it is? Read Navahoax [laweekly.com]: a story about a very similar situation as this one, where a writer made up supposedly nonfiction autobiographical accounts and was published (the publishers here also say we don't fact check such stories). The stories in this case do deal with child molestation, among other things, and while the stories are not accusations per se, one wonders abou
Re:Who really gives a fuck? (Score:3, Interesting)
In addition to these rap sheet creations, Frey also invented a role for himself in a deadly train accident that cost the lives of two female high school students. In what may be his book's most crass flight from reality, Frey remarkably appropriates and manipulates details of the incident so he can falsely portray himself as the tragedy's third victim. It's a cynical and offensive pl
Re:Who really gives a fuck? (Score:5, Funny)
This is slashdot. Even if you haven't read it, you'll feel duped in 48 hours.
Re:Who really gives a fuck? (Score:3, Interesting)
Or just tell them to stay out of the history/real life sections of the book store if they might want to read something that hasn't been embellished one iota.
No incentive (Score:5, Informative)
My publisher does some checking for plagarism, since that has come up a couple of times.
Re:No incentive (Score:5, Informative)
This article here http://www.slate.com/id/2135069/ [slate.com] refers to a 2003 article http://www.startribune.com/389/v-print/story/2092
Too costly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too costly -- or was it? (Score:3, Funny)
When and if contacted for comment, Oprah Winfrey -- by her own account an "American TV presenter", whatever that may be, and who cares, and not me -- said she could neither confirm nor deny anything
Well, if it's costly, it's clearly bad... (Score:5, Funny)
A million little pieces of shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A million little pieces of shit (Score:3, Interesting)
A snippet: "At first I was puzzled by the fact that most of Frey's fans were women. Once again, I was deluded by all that Berkeley nonsense, assuming that women would object to the gross misogyny in Frey's novels, his habit of killing off women characters for cheap tears, his atavistic Hemingway swagger, his inevitable conclusion (in My Friend Leonard) that chicks are chapters while men are books-that only homoerotic friendships betw
Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Disgusting...
Re:Ha! (Score:3, Insightful)
That day was over as soon as it cost more to fact-check a book than the projected profit. Or, more cynically, perhaps when it was calculated that the expected loss from erroneous facts was less than the cost of fact-checking. Either way, publishers are not a public service; they are a for-profit business, and typically not a particularly high-margin business. What would you prefer: A p
Re:Ha! (Score:2)
That day was way before we sold tons of books/magazines/newspapers.
Greed supersedes all lesser sins or higher morals.
Re:Ha! (Score:3, Funny)
Think of the poor shareholders
think
.
---
Counter-example: The New Yorker (Score:3, Informative)
True,
irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Publishers aren't perfect. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Publishers aren't perfect. (Score:5, Funny)
Cause my father taught me not to believe everything I read on Slashdot.
What? They can't verify my autobiography!? (Score:3, Insightful)
While I think the publishers of a scientific journal bare some responsibility when it turns out an article was entirely bogus I don't understand why people want to blame the publishers of an Autobiography.
Had the publishers known the book was faked, contrived or otherwise bogus they should have refused publishing it as an autobiography. I see no reason for them to go out of their way to prove, or disprove it though.
People take some things far too seriously.
Re:What? They can't verify my autobiography!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What? They can't verify my autobiography!? (Score:3, Insightful)
While I think the publishers of a scientific journal bare some responsibility when it turns out an article was entirely bogus I don't understand why people want to blame the publishers of an Autobiography.
Had the publishers known the book was faked, contrived or otherwise bogus they should have refused publishing it as an autobiography. I see no reason for them to go out of their way to prove, or disprove it though.
They should've made a reasonable effort to verify that the book they were representin
Well hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone worries about the standards of Oprah's latest gem we should have something in place to hold "news" publicists/broadcasters responsible for their tripe.
So, where's the news? (Score:2)
There's plenty of books contradicting eachother's "facts" and books later proven to be incorrect, so what exactly has changed since A Million Little Pieces? There's a lot more dangerous books than some junkie's fantasy adventure.
Does he "eat his own dandruff" too? (Score:2)
Not a new thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
At first I was annoyed by this phoenomenon, and then bored by it. Initally I assumed that the people who publish Coulter would care that her lies slandered their good name. And then I realized that they didn't care. They were making money off of her and the people both defending and attacking her. And, at the end of the day most people only believe those that say what they want to hear anyway.
While I was initially inclined to see this as bad publishing I now see this as a bigger problem.
Re:Not a new thing. (Score:2)
Actually, Coulter has had her article de-syndicated from a variety of publications. And that's on top of the occasional speaking engagement that gets canceled.
But your main point still holds. I think the main difference between now and the past is that it takes a lot more to "cro
Re:Not a new thing. (Score:2)
Just like in HHGTTG and the whole debate over turning on Deep Thought, ya know.
Re:Not a new thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Step into the $2.55 million dollar Manhattan penthouse [thesmokinggun.com] he bought with his lies and you might just change your mind. There's also mention of a summer home in cozy Amagansett.
It also almost got him a screenplay based on the book, and another based on the Hell's Angels. Look him up on IMDb.
Ann Coulter is an actress (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt that. I put Ann Coulter in the same bin as professional wrestlers. I have no doubt that Ms. Coulter is indeed a neoconservative (social conservative, fiscal liberal), but when she gets on TV and makes outrageous claims to tick some people off and gratify others, she is being an actor and an entertainer. The majority of what she says is extreme hyperbole. She can make a career off of exaggeration, and is doing exactly that.
Michael Moore does the same thing (though he tends to stick more to specifically attacking Bush and friends than Coulter, who has a habit of attacking this vast and twisted monster that she's built called "the liberal"). He's making a good living doing what he's doing.
This is ridiculous. (Score:2, Insightful)
And the Ambulance Chasers are loose.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Late Friday afternoon, plaintiff's attorney Marc Bern said he filed a lawsuit against Random House and its Doubleday imprint in U.S. District Court in Manhattan charging that the publishers misrepresented that book as nonfiction. His client, California resident Karen Futernick, alleges in the suit that she purchased "A Million Little Pieces" on that basis but that the defendants "failed to conduct a reasonable investigation or inquiry regarding the truthfulness or accuracy" of the material. Mr. Bern said that he will seek more than $50 million in damages for the plaintiffs. "Nobody can get away with profiting with a product that you represented as something that it is not," says Alan Ripka, another partner in Napoli Bern Ripka LLP, the New York City law firm that filed the suit.
Ayup. $50 Million dollars because she bought a book marked as non-fiction that was actually fictional. If she ever went into the Boston Public Library, we could clear the national deficit just from the Natural Sciences section alone!
Re:And the Ambulance Chasers are loose.. (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness [wikipedia.org]
She wouldn't be suing if she felt the underlying truthiness of Frey's book.
Re: And the Ambulance Chasers are loose.. (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, that's only 50 dollars per piece.
Classic Examples: Fortunate Son & Arming Ameri (Score:5, Interesting)
Fortunate Son was withdrawn from the publisher because A.) The author was utterly unable to provide a single shred of proof for the only new, "bombshell" revelation in the book, i.e. that George W. Bush was once arrested for cocaine possession, and B.) The author turned out to be a liar and convicted felon. He was an ex-con on parole for attempted murder, had pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $34,000 in federal housing funds, none of which he happened to mention to St. Martin's while pitching the book. Plus he was caught making up stories about his background; as a science fiction writer, I especially liked the one about how he was recipient of "the prestigious international Isaac Asimov Foundation Literary Award for Outstanding Biography," which, oddly enough, doesn't exist.)
Michael Bellesiles' Arming America was another demonstrable (although initially more believable and well-crafted) fraud that argued gun ownership in early America was rare. Researchers following up on his work found that some of his source material said the exact opposite of what he claimed [nationalreview.com]. That eventually got Bellesiles fired from his university position, and even had the Bancroft prize committee not only rescind the prize it had awarded him, but ask for the prize money back!
Re:Classic Examples: Fortunate Son & Arming Am (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Classic Examples: Fortunate Son & Arming Am (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to read a good book by a liar and a convicted felon, I hear G. Gordon Liddy [barnesandnoble.com] has a new one coming.
Why these examples? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why, pray tell, did you happen to choose these particular examples? I'd almost suspect that you have a political axe to grind...especially since in your list of cases of "recent vintage" you left off several more compelling, more current, and more significant cases.
--MarkusQ
P.S. And before you start drawing unfounded
Re:Why these examples? (Score:5, Informative)
C.Y.A (Score:2)
Re:C.Y.A (Score:2)
This startling info is very troubling (Score:2, Funny)
There may very well have been popular works of fiction that may actually have been non-fiction! I bet if Smoking Gun digs a little, they might get something on Stephen King.
$50m for buying a book? (Score:3, Interesting)
Mixed opinions (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, it's a damn good book, and wouldn't have been as good if I thought it was fake. My girlfriend's English professor went to college with him, and said that the guy was definately a tortured soul. When he spent that 2 nights in jail (which he claimed was 5 years in his book), it really tore him up; for him, it was 5 years.
Regardless, this didn't hurt his book sales too badly! It's still on the top 5 sellers list!
As far as publishers fact-checking: Do we really expect these guys to do this? That could take some digging for them, and we all know how publishers can be.
Why isn't Oprah being scrutinized? (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed on both counts! (Score:2)
(b) That the US government would be dumb enough to base policy on what they saw on Oprah
Re:Why isn't Oprah being scrutinized? (Score:2)
Unless you know for certain that Oprah and Nagin were conspiring to lie to and decieve the public, you are a hypocrite. You are deceiving the public using the same technique you denounce.
Re:Why isn't Oprah being scrutinized? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why isn't Oprah being scrutinized? (Score:2)
So you agree that grandparent is a hypocrite?
Re:Why isn't Oprah being scrutinized? (Score:5, Insightful)
THAT is the reason I don't bother with MSM anymore. It's all worthless PR.
Re:Why isn't Oprah being scrutinized? (Score:2)
Oprah and Nagin were walking in the Superdome during this episode. They had first hand knowledge what happened in there by their very presence and
Re:Why isn't Oprah being scrutinized? (Score:5, Insightful)
DON'T MISS IT! THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOUR CHILD!
non-fiction books vs. Wikipedia (Score:3, Insightful)
So, maybe now people constantly slamming Wikipedia for its lack of "fact checking" will stop?
It's only a matter of time before fact checking becomes a pay-for extra even in science journals.
Re:non-fiction books vs. Wikipedia (Score:2)
Gotta say... (Score:2)
Really, did something happen? (Score:2)
Methinks we look at this incorrectly (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone should pick this up as an opportunity to create a commercial certification such as in MSA, UL, or to a much less and more stupid extent, A+. e.g. Certified to be factual by Sarlon (its made up I hope). With that they get the right to put the big ol' Sarlon stamp on the cover and in the publishers disclaimer.
As with all certifications, whose without are obviously sub-par and not to be trusted.
I am only partially joking.
publishers have been doing this for centuries.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Fact checking should be for reviewers (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it quite irritating that some books are out to trick their readers, and there are many I'd prefer had never been written simply because it means I spend more time having to argue with and correct people on certain topics if they've been taking rubbish sources seriously. But the thought of non-fiction books having to be factually correct seems quite far-fetched. If publishers and authors could be sued for providing factually wrong books in a non-fiction category, then categories such as "New age" would be illegal, simply because authors who publish in them tend to be out to swindle their readers in one way or another by definition, and the publisher's probably in it for the sales. (Okay, I see New Age as fiction, but many book shops, publishers and people don't.)
Some of the best satire can come from effectively lying to an audience, and I don't see how you could cleanly distinguish it. Peter Jackson is just an example of someone who's done this, having faked an historical documentory (see Forgotten Silver [imdb.com]) and lied about its origins to get it on TV. He had a lot of gullible people thinking they were seeing actual history, including the TV network, before he revealed it was all made up. What's the difference? Could he have been sued by the network? Possibly, but he took that chance and he wasn't, and now Forgotten Silver is considered a work of art.
As sad as I think it is that there are some really crappy books out there, and people who believe them, I'm not sure how rules could be made to fairly place responsibility on a publisher. Personally I think that fact checking should come from peers after publication, and it should be the responsibility of the reader to check if the facts have been checked. Hopefully anything that's actually important enough and relied on by enough people will have its facts checked, resulting in either confirmation, or a very embarassed author and publisher. There are always reputations to go on. In the case the article speaks of, the publisher is hopefully now being made to look more than a little stupid, and I'd like to think that Oprah's Book Club reputation is probably suffering a bit more than it was previously if its followers ever cared about this sort of thing. I've never followed her book club myself, but that's for good reason.
The publishing business is very sick.... (Score:2)
It's also quantity game. Quality is how much you can pimp your book at ABA, or find clev
Sometimes you just have to wonder though. (Score:3, Insightful)
But no. Time after time, you see all manner of media go through at least three levels of possible sanity checking and bullshit filter, and still somehow the real stinkers get through.
It's worse with medical & self-help books (Score:2)
What I do have a problem with is books that push a controversial viewpoint about (say) medicine. The best example is Kevin Trudeau [wikipedia.org] and his book Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About.
Honestly, there is really nothing stopping me writing a book claiming that "prescription medicine is CAUSING DISEAS
WSJ Bias (Score:2)
simple, cheap solution (Score:2)
make another category of book...
fiction
non-fiction
and partial-fiction
or some other catchy title.
simple, non consumer-deceptive solution. this category simply means that facts weren't checked.
There is no need any longer (Score:2)
In the long haul, even if books continue to have staying power, the Internet is all you need to fact check. Book publishing costs are way down but distribution and marketing costs are way up. If an author
Mark Twain (Score:2)
I hear he too might be coming out with an autobiography.
Doubleday still wants the money (Score:2)
They still want to rake in the big bucks. Rather than dumping this liar they'll just put a bandaid on it and keep raking it in.
Amazon.com News from Doubleday & Anchor Books The controversy over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces has caused serious concern at Doubleday and Anchor Books. Recent interpretations of our previous statement notwithstanding, it is not the policy or stance of this company that it does
yah cuz paper is expensive (Score:2)
Religious works need fact checking, too. (Score:3, Informative)
Richard Dawkins, the well-known Oxford biologist, has been pushing for this lately. His two-hour series on Channel 4 in Britain, investigates religion the way 60 Minutes investigates scams. Part I, "The God Delusion" [onegoodmove.org], includes a visit to a US megachurch in which the interviewer asks the preacher some tough questions. He also visits Lourdes, and asks questions about the reported miracle cure rate and the types of miracles recorded. It's consumer activism applied to religion.
(The audio of the show is available on the site above, and plays fine. The video is available on BitTorrent [mininova.org] but seems to have some formatting problems.)
Fiction can still be true (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure which is the more nauseating. That the Opera crew (and sundry attorneys and greed-crazed readers) should have failed to notice that "A Million Little Pieces" could not possibly be true in any literal way; or that having had this pointed out to them, they should blame others for their own stupidity then seek to profit from it.
I doubt we'll hear Oprah calling up an archbishop and demanding the withdrawal of the New Testament any time soon. Maybe, shock horror, the world of 2000 years ago had a much more sophisticated understanding of truth and fiction that we do today.
FWIW, I didn't think much of "A Million Little Pieces". It fails to engage. And, yes, publishers are mostly a two-faced, puffed-up crowd, prattling about literature while paying freelance editors and proofreaders not much more than burger-flipping rates then blaming them for foobars that a Harvard professor might easily have missed.
Re:I don't rely on fact checking either. (Score:2, Insightful)