East, schmeast, what’s in a name?
Freelance writer Hrag Vartanian blogs about being misquoted:
I was interviewed by Steve Malanga for a recent profile of Bushwick, Brooklyn for City Journal and found this paragraph that proved to me (yet again) that you should always be cautious about giving interviews, even to nice guys–which Steve obviously is:
Some early arrivals claim that landlords hoodwinked them into thinking that they were moving to an already gentrifying Williamsburg. “I was looking for a place I could afford to live in on my own,” remembers freelance writer Hrag Vartanian, “and the price was right here, though the place still had an edge to it. Our super was an ex-con who would regale us with stories of the local drug trade that used to be here. I quickly figured out this wasn’t really Williamsburg.”
There are a couple of factual errors in this short paragraph (go figure), so I wrote the author to let him know and he did respond rather nicely but I wanted to set the record straight.
1. I never thought I was moving to Williamsburg but East Williamsburg, very different places.
2. Also, I liked Bushwick for its edge, not in spite of it.
Doesn’t take much to dramatically change the story. Getting the area name wrong is just sloppiness, but misconstruing Vartanian’s attitude is a trickier issue. At least what’s quoted here might possibly be mistaken for being in the “hoodwinked and disappointed camp,” but presumably there was more dialogue with Vartanian which revealed his intent.
However, simple interviewing techniques, like asking questions which repeat what you THINK is the subject’s meaning or just asking to clarify the meaning, can prevent such misinterpretations.
Posted: June 13th, 2008 under Accuracy, Asking Questions, Guest Experiences, Journalistic Credibility, Print Interview Case Studies, Print Interviews.
Comments
Comment from george
Time June 14, 2008 at 9:29 am
Thanks for that added context, Hrag. About your point of emailing interviewees with the quotes you’re planning to use, to make sure that they aren’t misrepresentative, that’s an excellent idea. I think a lot of journalists develop the mistaken notion that any sort of “running things by” the interviewee is giving up control of the story. However, they’re not distinguishing between that and ensuring accuracy.
Comment from Hrag
Time June 13, 2008 at 10:18 am
It’s true that it was a longer conversation…about an hour. I was disappointed but I’m well aware of how frustrating/confusing it was be when you write a final piece and inadvertently forgot to write down a word as part of a quote. Sometimes I even email quotes to those I interview if there is any question regarding context, etc.