Thursday, January 1, 2015

"Correction . . ."

". . . This article was totally wrong."

[T]he problems seem systemic, not the kind that can be fixed simply by asking writers to slow down or hiring a few more editors. Vox has hired a number of Bright Young People—and is run by the Brightest Young People—and the house style seems to be, "Write as if you are an expert, in a tone assuming that everything one needs to know about a subject can be found in your article." These Bright Young People may well be near-experts on one or two subjects, or at least close enough to pass as such online, but Vox publishes at the same rapid pace as the rest of the internet, on an exceptional and ever-growing number of topics, and there's only so much authoritativeness to go around.
I lost interest in Vox after I noticed that an article about law was clearly written by someone who wasn't a legal expert; the writer seemed to have mistakenly believed s/he was well-versed in a certain criminal procedure issue just by reading some news reports about a Supreme Court case.

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