Wikipedia-bashing New York Times columnist draws major accuracy complaint

By David Rothman

Randy Stross, a freelance business columnist writing regularly for the New York Times, is an accuracy guy, if you go by his past attack on Wikipedia. “Wasn’t yesterday’s practice of attaching ‘Albert Einstein’ to an article on ‘Space-Time’ a bit more helpful than today’s ’71.240.205.101′?” Stross asked. Oddly, however, he himself has virtually no biographical information on his Web site despite a friendly suggestion last year from the TeleBlog.

Worse, if you factor in his sloppy reportage on Freeload Press in the paid-textbook controversy, you may not want to trust Stross in the future.

Badly sourced dreck

Freeload CEO Tom Doran—D-o-r-a-n, Randy, not the way your NYT column spelled it, D-u-r-a-n—has compiled a detailed list of Stross’s distortions and errors. For example, in writing about a University of Michigan course, Stross said: “Most class members found reading the dense pages on the computer monitor to be a strain and resorted to buying a softbound printed version of the book.” In Hey, New York Times misspelled my name, however, Doran reveals that Freeload received just two orders from the University’s students asking for the paperback. He says his company was “the only place these students could buy the softbound printed version of the book.” On top of everything else, as I’ve already observed, Stross did not quote a single student in the article, including the cash-strapped variety, the most common kind; and as you’ll see, Doran’s reply points out some other serious shortcomings in the source department.

Mind you, the blogosphere is hardly a hotbed of perfect accuracy. I know of at least one blogger who briefly misspelled Tom’s name online until someone pointed out the error. Yep. That was me. I foolishly trusted a New York Times columnist.

Thousands of editors: Readers

You bet that in perping a fast-paced blog on a budget of $0 other than Web hosting expenses, I commit atrocities; and I’m eager for readers to point them out so I can correct them. Within the better regions of blogging world, the vetting process puts the mass medium to shame. I’ve got thousands of potential fact-checkers, my readers, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll never get everything right. For me and other TeleBlog contributors, the blog isn’t just a form of expression; it’s also a way to learn, especially when we’re wrong.

This is why I love the idea of interactive books where readers can talk back to writers, and where core texts can be effortlessly changed when errors come light—ideally with Wikipedia-level tracking in place, eventually. Writers will even be able to have their blogs visible within their books. Significantly, Freeload will help blaze the way next year, with the use interactive software for its e-textbooks, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the blog feature show up eventually if it isn’t present from the start.

Times article still misspelling Tom’s last name

Had the New York Times been a well-read blog or a popular interactive e-book, “Doran” would have replaced “Duran” within hours. Just now, however, when I dropped by the online version of Stross’s August 27 column, “Duran” was still there with nary a correction. My hunch is that many buyers of the printed Times read the flawed Stross piece, then moved on, even while it continued to rattle around cyberspace, begging for dissection.

So what happens from here in regard to possible corrections—plural!—in the Times? Let us count the days. How long until the printed version of the New York Times article or a follow-up spells Tom’s name correctly, at the very least, assuming the original column ever does?

Fodder for Times’ public editor, perhaps?

Is it possible, moreover, that the Times’ public editor might want to read the Randy Stross column and Tom’s rebuttal and decide whether Stross followed proper journalistic standards?

No, this isn’t Jayson Blair territory—we’re not talking about Stross inventing Freeload Press or its critics out of thin air, the way the fired New York Times reporter concocted sources. But we are talking about acccuracy, fairness and sheer decency. What a shame that the New York Times unwittingly lent its name to an outright hatchet job.

In the future, when I read Wikipedia, I’ll know that an entry may or may not be correct. When I read Stross, however, at least when he’s writing about a person or company he dislikes, I’ll be far skeptical than toward an anonymous Wikipedia writer. If the Freeload Press piece is representative, we have ample reasons to worry about his accuracy in everything he writes. I’m reminded of Mary McCarthy‘s famous quote about Lillian Hellman: “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’” Whether about Hellman or Stross, yes, we’re talking hyperbole; but you get the idea.

Randy, I know you aren’t 71.240.205.101, and that’s too bad. I’d trust you more.

Note for latecomers: I’m co-founder of the OpenReader Consortium. DotReader, the interactive e-reading software that Freeload Press will use, will be the first software to be compatible with the OpenReader standard.

Related: Garson Poole on the Mary McCarthy quote (now changed). Reader feedback in action!