That’s what Newsweek’s Malcolm Jones wants to know:
Fact-checking is a routine part of almost every news operation. Publishers with worries about a manuscript they plan to publish may question an author, and they may run the manuscript by a lawyer, who looks at it for questions of libel. If a book is particularly technical, it may be sent to one or more outside experts for verification. Academic presses routinely subject manuscripts to peer review before publication. But that’s about it. Most publishers insist that they cannot afford to fact-check every manuscript that comes their way. In the case of small- to medium-sized houses, that’s probably true. In the case of Doubleday, Frey’s publisher and a unit of a large multinational corporation, the defense looks a little rickety.
Larry Kirshbaum was asked about this issue by NYT’s Edward Wyatt and had this to say:
“Traditionally, publishers have not done fact-checking and vetting. But I think you are going to see memoirs read not only from a libel point of view but for factual accuracy. And where there are questions of possible exaggeration or distortion, the author is going to need to produce documentation.”
All well and good, of course, but a few other things to consider: first, budget. Is it so difficult to incorporate a fact-checker or two starting at the salary of, say, an editorial assistant (or at least an assistant editor) or does that throw things out of whack? By taking extra time to pore through public records and re-confirm everything, will the publisher be even less likely to make back its share on the memoir they acquire?
Then there’s the fact that even with the spotlight shining so brightly, it’s probably impossible to fact-check absolutely everything — especially in a several-hundred page manuscript. But one issue that might have contributed to this so-called erosion is the rise in outsourced editing, especially copyediting. Because by saving costs, sometimes you really do get what you pay for…