Writers and Editors

Feb 27, 2012 3:24 PM EST

More on the same subject:The Fact-Checker Versus the Fabulist (Gideon Lewis-Kraus, 2-21-12) and Writer vs. Fact-Checker: This Time, It’s Personal (The 6th Floor blog, Eavesdropping on the Times Magazine 2-22-12)D'Agata teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa Creative Writing Program.

- PM

Mar 10, 2012 6:35 AM EST

I have written about this issue on my own blog, and, guiltily, less tolerantly than you. As you note, About a Mountain "blends his reporting and storytelling," and there's a lot of reporting, giving the impression that it is factual, and it mostly is. But he does weird things that are unnecessary in my view, as if to make a point. But I don't get the point, unfortunately. Maybe because I was a reporter. I am not a stickler, since his admitted composite characters and events in the service of good storytelling don't bother me. Some things do.

- Richard Gilbert

Mar 12, 2012 9:38 AM EDT

An interesting follow-up piece: What Do Fact-Checkers and Anesthesiologists Have in Common? (David Zweig, The Atlantic, 3-1-12). Understanding why some people choose professions where accomplishments go unheralded. Here's a sample: "IN A CULTURE that favors sensation, the fact checker is an anomaly, perhaps even anathema. He is the brakes on editors and writers racing toward deadline intent on dazzling readers at the expense of edifying them. He is the schoolmarm tsk tsking. He is the public defender for the unrepresented, the downtrodden, the forgotten—the facts." An excellent description of this important position follows, and more broadly is linked with other "Invisibles," who get public notice generally only when things go wrong: anesthesiologists ("they share the same fastidiousness, inner pride of their work, and joy of behind-the-scenes power"), piano tuners (imagine good concerts without them, but do they take a bow?), and graphic designers ("great design often shouldn't call attention to itself").

- Pat McNees