Watts article

[pynchonoid]

Gotta agree with jbor on this one.

Despite Malign's hysterical allegations, it's not
unethical or nonprofessional for a journalist to
include direct quotes in an article without
attribution, it happens all the time in all kinds of
journalistic works, for many reasons.  What I've
learned during a long career as a journalist,
including periods in which I've worked as an
editor-in-chief with up to 25 assistant editors and
writers reporting to me:  the reporter bears the
responsibility for making sure the quotes and facts
are accurate, while the editor must be satisfied that
the reporter is honestly portraying what he learned
while reporting the story.  As long as the reporting
is solid and  claims are corroborated, facts and
quotes can be presented in the way best suited to the
particular project. 

There's no evidence for Pynchon making anything up or
otherwise behaving unethically or unprofessionally
regarding the Watts article; in such a case, it falls
to the person making the accusation to provide
concrete evidence of fraud or otherwise unprofessional
behavior. Malign can't, of course, provide such
evidence, only bootless bluster. That the New York
Times continued to publish articles by Pynchon for
several decades after the Watts essay suggests, to me
at least, that Pynchon's editors at the Times were
satisfied with his work.

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> Attributing a direct quotation to more than one
> person is not as outrageous
> as you are making out. It's easy to imagine the
> process: in collecting
> material for the article he has been contracted to
> write Pynchon goes to
> Watts and speaks to various individuals and groups
> of locals, perhaps even
> tapes these exchanges. When speaking with a group
> one of them says something
> with which the rest of the group expresses
> agreement, so Pynchon
> incorporates the quote verbatim and attributes it as
> the sentiment of the
> whole group. That seems to me a more straightforward
> way to read Pynchon's
> use of direct quotation, consensus attributions, and
> black slang in the
> article rather than asserting, over and over again
> and without evidence,
> that he made it all up.
>

=====
http://pynchonoid.org
"everything connects"


		
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