On Fact-checking, Again

Christian Lorentzen, giornalista newyorchese che ora lavora a Londra, mette alla berlina l'ossesione degli americani per il fact-checking. Dopo aver riportato una conversazione a un party con una conoscente che lavora nell'editoria, commenta, "If I were writing this for an American publication, I'd be under the burden of revealing the woman's identity, and a fact-checker would call her to confirm what she said and what I said, what magazine she wrote for, whether our conversation ended with her going to get a new drink, what sort of drink it was, whether we were talking alone, whether I might have left anyone out of the conversation. ... A real go-getter, the auteur type, might go so far as to figure out what bar we were at, at what time, the colour of the woman's hair, what she was wearing, her height, whether she had written any books, how they were received, how many they sold, her marital status, the dress she wore to her wedding, the names of her children, what sort of horses she rides, what sort of crowd it was, the level of anxiety in the room, whether we were upstairs or downstairs and what colour the wallpaper was. lrb.