Word: gossip
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more about Saul's fascination with so-called primitive people. He wonders, in particular, about evidence that the besieged Machiguengas, dispersed into small groups by enemies and harsh conditions, retain their sense of community through a storyteller who travels wherever listeners can be found, recounting tribal legends, history and gossip. Such a person, the determined writer concludes, amounts to "tangible proof that storytelling can be something more than mere entertainment...
...Perhaps dog-bites-dog is a better label. Like many Washington-based agents for large news organizations, I am mentioned in other publications now and then. Our work is parsed by press critics; we get into contretemps with the powerful; we serve as filler for the growing number of gossip columns. All this is, in principle, legitimate. Those who groan reflexively when needled or critiqued simply confirm the aphorism about journalistic skins being thinner than the average American adult's. What stokes my personal I.L. is the frequency of error in these items. The venerable practice of checking ostensible facts...
...colleagues." The remark, never uttered, was not checked either with me or with the editor to whom I had reported. Later, the New York Times Book Review picked up the unfounded quote. The news section of the same Sunday edition carried an editors' note pointing out that the original gossip-page item in New York had been denied...
...time permits.) But there are enough unalloyed clinkers in this little collection to raise disturbing questions. If Washingtonian didn't get my pay right, how many other numbers in that story were wrong? If the New York Times -- ostensibly the newspaper of record -- adopts a dubious item from a gossip column, how many other colorful anecdotes are published without being checked for accuracy...
...contact the school nurse to find out if anyone has morning sickness. Never talk to the principal, who may not want to know about these things." She also suggests that would-be mothers and fathers start haunting skating rinks, rock concerts, used-clothing stores, anywhere they might hear some gossip and make connections...