The Remains of the Day

Houston! We have a problem! Sad news - NY Knicks captain Allan Houston is retiring at 34 after years of distinguished service. Awww. Loss for the city. Thank you for nine great seasons, Allan. Go Knicks! [NYT] Corrections to "The Corrections": Remember that NYTBR think-piece on correcting the record in books, and how error-prone they are? Remember how we laughed that it had a correction? Well guess what? Turns out it has another correction -- which makes three. Way to fact check, author Nora Krug. But don't listen to us, listen to someone who oughta know: corrections maven and shining beacon of transparency and accuracy to authors everywhere, Seth Mnookin (blog synchronicity alert!), who writes in to the NYTBR peeved at Krug's assertion that "putting a statement between hard (or soft) covers does not make it more reliable than one published in a newspaper." Yo yo, Nora Krug, Mnookin issued those correction out of journalistic responsibility and as "a gesture toward helping to restore readers' faith in the printed word and the publishing process by showing them that some authors are more concerned with getting it right than saving face." Then he pointed out that, word for word, she had almost ten times as many errors as he did (er, 30 times based on the post-publication count). But hey, asked Mnookin, who's counting? SNAP! Moral of the story: it's totally tempting fate to write something about being accurate while smacking down someone else for same. Karma, baby. Also, nit-picking exchanges about who made what mistake where will never stop being boring. But being accurate isn't about being exciting; it's about being right. In light of the weekend's events, I think that's a lesson we can all take to heart. [Regret the Error] Did you get my text/email/phone call/cellphone call/IM/Pony Express? Apparently, we're busy, and everybody wants a piece. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and the trick is finding the balance. So what else is new. Our favorite Canadian techmeister Clive Thompson looks at our patterns of interruptions at work and wonders how we can do it better. I wonder too, and I totally would have finished reading the article but I just got an urgent email. 11 seconds and counting! p.s. Irony: This article is currently #3 on MEL, which means that it has been pinging into a whole lotta lives as an email interruption for the past 24 hours. Love the meta-ness of that. [NYT Mag] New ASME Advertising Guidelines: Church, State and Torah Even in Las Croabas, Puerto Rico, the American Society of Magazine Editors was working hard to safeguard the sacrosanct editorial wall between editorial and advertising in our hallowed magazines. Shortening the old guidelines from five pages to one -- what ASME prez and Newsweek ed. Mark Whitaker compared to shrinking the Torah to the Ten Commandments -- the new guidelines stubbornly maintain that regular editorial features can't be sponsored, but non-recurring editorial features like inserts and special issues (Target, anyone?)are fair game. Find them here in PDF form; otherwise, just take AdAge's word for it. PS. Thanks for the new guidelines, guys, but hope you all had time to sling back tons of frothy drinks and get a wicked tan. [AdAge]

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The Remains of the Day

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