This is what I know: journalists, like many others in many professions, frequently get what the source told them wrong. Most often, I think, because of their love of their own voice, and wording, and because they get caught up in how they themselves wish to tell the story. I know this because as an artist Ive been frequently interviewed in the past, and embarrassingly frustrated to see my own words and the story I told twisted by the journalist. Because of the story the journalist wanted to tell. The way the journalist wanted to tell it. Their own art. Separated from the truth of the artist written of. The hope that was held out that someone outside myself would make my work known to the world was dashed again and again. But I had no other choice than to be grateful. There was nothing I could do but bear up under false attributions of what Id supposedly said, while I was also supposed to feel flattered that someone wanted to publicly tell my story. It was printed, it was never a big enough story to warrant the ungrateful-seeming refutation. My friend Beth is a journalist/blogger who was the last one in recent years to want to interview me. She told me straight up that the story would be hers as a journalist to do with as she pleased. I asked her as a friend, please dont change my wording. Thank goodness, she agreed. We were both pleased with the story/interview. Ill post the link sometime, its been a while. The last time I was asked for my story by an online magazine I was also pleased. The words were all my own. All of that said by way of introduction to this thoughtful blog article from Tom Hawking/Flavorwire I wonder, and I hope others will at least wonder too, if there is the possibility that this young woman perhaps didnt get a fair shake from the journalist caught up in the journalists way of telling a story. I read it and had doubts when I read it. Something in the way the story was told just rang false. So I said nothing at the time. I believe that all problems and potential problems cited in this article combine with the original article authors own problems as a writer and as a person caught up in a story : flavorwire/492498/rolling-stones-statement-on-the-uva-gang-rape-discredits-the-magazine-not-the-victims-account
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 12:58:25 +0000