From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Bush interview as quoted in Alt.Atheism FAQ
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 12:45:15 BST
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

tke@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (thomas.j.epstein) writes:
> In article <LR8aoB25w165w@mantis.co.uk> mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk> writes:
> >tke@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (thomas.j.epstein) writes:
> >> Let me see if I got this right:  The article reports the interviewer 
> >> addressing the not-as-of-yet President as, "Mr. President."  This
> >> might be an indication that there was a typographical error, or it
> >> might be an indication that the entire article was a poorly-done
> >> hoax. In fact, it could be indicative of many things.
> >
> >For example, I saw on a TV report someone sucking up to Clinton by addressin
> >him as "Mr President".
> 
> No problem there, that is another of the many possible reasons.  Other than r
> demonstrating that your intent to delete the offending words has no basis on
> any knowledge of the truth of the matter, what is your point?

Allow me to explain FAQ files to you.

FAQ files are compilations of questions and answers from Usenet newsgroups.
They should therefore be viewed as no more accurate or inerrant than any other
piece of information obtained from Usenet. 

I would like to think that the alt.atheism FAQ file is a little bit more
accurate or representative than a random posting taken from the newsgroup,
but only because it was condensed from a very large sample of such postings.

I am not an investigative journalist, and I am not paid to edit the FAQ file. 
I do it entirely in my own time.  I am not American, and I therefore have
little motivation to find out exactly what George Bush has or has not said
about any particular matter of relevance to the US Constitution.

Now, if you can provide me with a good reason for thinking that the quotes
currently in the FAQ file and attributed to Mr Bush are in fact lacking
*IMPORTANT* context, or that they distort his views in some way, then I will
perhaps spend some of my valuable time investigating the matter.

If all you have to offer is "Hey, the answer to that question might be a
complete fabrication", then I'm afraid the answer I have to give you is that
every other 'fact' in the FAQ file *might* be a complete fabrication. 
However, those 'facts' were gained from a large number of people, and have
withstood scrutiny for many months.  Unless you can show that something which
has been in the file for months *is* a complete fabrication, I am going to
let it stand.

Alternatively, if you'd like to pay me to investigate all the 'facts' in the
FAQ file, please get in contact and we can discuss a suitable hourly rate.

>                                                                Mine is *not*
> that Mr. Bush said (or did not say) the simple-minded drivel attributed to hi
> in the article. My point is that you, while having no knowledge of the facts 
> the matter, have taken it upon youself to edit the article to suit your purp-
> oses.

Oh?  And what "purposes" are those?  

I'm not a US citizen, so I don't care which of the two right-wing
authoritarian idiots your country picks to act as President.  After all, the
rest of the world survived Reagan.  Quite frankly I couldn't give a flying
fuck whether George Bush is an atheist, a Christian, or even a Satanist.  If
he sets up concentration camps for atheists I'll see it on the news.

> This is nothing less than blatant dishonesty.  If you stated that you
> would not republish the article untill you were able to verify its contents,
> we would not be having this discussion.

If you pay me to go away and reverify the contents of the article, I'll do
so.  But so long as you're telling me what I should be doing with my own
unpaid time, your demands carry no weight.  If you're so damn concerned about
The Truth, waste your own time following up references to US newspapers to
find out exactly how Mr Bush was greeted at the airport.  Write up your own
version of the FAQ file with more accurate quotations.  That's the way these
things work.

But I can't help thinking that it's actually pretty damn irrelevant whether
George Bush was greeted "Mr President", "Mr Bush", or "Hey, Georgie Baby". 
The important details are the question itself and the answer he gave.  Do you
have any (non-circumstantial) reason for suspecting that those are
inaccurately represented?

[ I have to admit it might be relevant if the alleged greeting had been "Hey,
  spam-head!" or "Come here, you tax-fattened hyena!" ]

>                                      Similarly, if you had chosen to merel
> report the contents of the original article without editing there would be
> little reason to impune you as a "yellow" journalist.

Believe it or not, that FAQ response was lifted word-for-word from a Usenet
posting or mail message.  That's how most of the text in the FAQ file got
there.  That's why it's called the *alt.atheism* FAQ file, not "mathew's
guide to atheism".

And as I've already explained, I'm not a journalist of any colour.

> You miss the point.  You should not wait untill you have heard a few pos-
> sibilities, you should wait untill you know that altering the quotation
> in the manner you intend is a correction to an inaccurate quotation.

It's a deletion of two words which are of no importance to the point being
made.

The important bit is "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are
Atheists?".  It doesn't really matter if the actual words spoken were "Mr.
Bush, what will you do to win the votes of Americans who are Atheists?" or
"Excuse me, Mr. Vice-President, what will you do to win the votes of Americans
who are Atheists?"

>                                                                        The
> only justification you have for deleting what could be a relevant quotation
> is that you know that indeed, the words were not said.

No, I just have reason to doubt that they were said, and I see no reason to
keep them as they are *completely unimportant* to the point being made.

> >>                                          Armed with no evedence whatsoever
> >> rather than seeking the truth of the matter, you choose to  delete (falsif
> >> corrupt, intentionally mis-inform, LIE ABOUT) a portion of the "informatio
> >> which you intend to propagate.
> 
> You have yet to demonstrate that the above paragraph is anything but exactly
> true.

I am not trying to propogate any sort of information about how Robert Sherman
addressed George Bush at O'Hare airport before asking him a question.  Are
you suggesting that the FAQ file as it now is will mislead people on that
oh-so-vital issue?

> >It's called quotation, Mr Epstein.  If you think the quotation as is now in
> 
> Based upon your own statements that you intend to alter a quotation based upo
> what is nothing more than your desire for it to read as you desire, it as cal
> led "misquotation": In this case "intentional miquotation."

Suppose I say "Mr Epstein, you are full of crap".

Suppose you then quote that by saying "mathew said to me 'You are full of
crap'".

Would you really call that "intentional misquotation"?  Would I be right to
demand that you cease posting such a misleading misquotation?

I am not altering anything based on my "desire for it to read as [I] desire".
(Hey, did you spot the intentional misquotation there?  Most heinous, eh?)
I am deleting from a quotation two completely unimportant 'filler' words
which I have reason to suspect were not spoken.

I don't know why you're so bent out of shape over this whole business.  Does
anybody else care about those two words?  I suspect not.

>                                   This has nothing to do with Mr. Bush. It 
> has everything to do with you. Everything which is fundamentally dishonest
> about your stated intentions would be equally dishonest if applied to a story
> about Mr. Clinton.

Which "stated intentions" are you referring to?


mathew
[ Followups to alt.flame, perhaps? ]
-- 
Buddy, can you spare a paradigm?