Fact-Checking

Hannah Goldfield, fact-checker al New Yorker, commenta un libro uscito recentemente, The Lifespan of a Fact, di John D'Agata e Jim Fingal (Norton), in cui D'Agata racconta le discussioni avute con il suo fact-checker, Fingal, per un articolo. "Much of the book's meta-text consists of Fingal's notes, which detail his careful, often interesting research. But D'Agata's responses are, rather than thoughtful and collaborative, hostile and delusional. He sees himself as an artist, not a reporter - even though he's written a reported story about something that very publicly happened in real life - and therefore completely exempt from the responsibility of fact-checking. 'Hi, Jim,' he writes, in the book's first e-mail excerpt. 'I think maybe there's some sort of miscommunication, because the' article,' as you call it, is fine. It shouldn't need a fact-checker…. I have taken some liberties … here and there, but none of them are harmful." newyorker.