Sound-bytten

Posted on October 21, 2002 in Journalists & Pundits Myths & Mysticism

Poor Chris Rettstatt. A victim of sound bytes is how VASpider characterizes him today. She reprints his considerate apology.

I can empathize. When a young reporter interviews you for the story, ninety nine times out of a hundred they won’t have a freaking idea what the actual story is. You can go everything carefully with them, checking and cross-checking quotes, flagging a particular quote as a key detail, and what comes out is something very different.

While I was fighting for the return of the Alcatraz records, a journalist interviewed me about my feelings regarding their being treated as the private reserve of a particular professor. I and other researchers very carefully explained our grievance (this fellow had been sitting on the records for 30 years planning to write a book which, as of this writing, still hasn’t materialized). I, in particular, avoided the suggestion of dark conspiracy theories and I don’t believe that the other researchers interviewed resorted to such tactics either. Still, when the article came out, the key points weren’t quoted, the article painted us as suspecting some kind of dark coverup about Alcatraz, and Professor X got the last words when he called us a “bunch of bozos”.

The reporter later told me that the editor had mangled his story.

We got the last laugh on the prof by forming the Proud and Benevolent Order of the Bozo. Remember what Bozo the Clown said: “Always keep ’em laughing.” Yuck yuck yuck.

My earlier comments on Luddite Quakers.