The other day I wrote about Tom Friedman’s ridiculous comment that no one had invented podcasting. I also wrote a letter to the editor of the FT pointing out the false statement.
I’m not surprised that my letter hasn’t run. The FT has extraordinarily little space for letters. Of course, they could be unconstrained for space on FT.com, but the site is so pitifully run compared to the hard copy newspaper that I suspect it never occurred to anyone at the paper they they could do something different with the website.
What’s less understandable is the uncorrected article. The paper has had plenty of time to append a note to the interview with Friedman correcting his nonsense. As commenters on my blog post have pointed out, it’s even worse. Friedman talks about podcasting, claiming his “podcast” was number one on iTunes. But there is no Friedman podcast. It’s an audiobook, which is a very different thing.
A Google search for Thomas Airmiles Friedman will find a lot of this sort of thing. I’m pretty sure the term originated with Daniel Davies of d-squared digest and Crooked Timber.
What newspaper prints a correction from an interviewed subject?? Are you out of your mind?
Plus, I’d hardly call Friedman’s quote inaccurate. Given that most people share Friedman’s definition of podcasting, his quote is entirely valid.
“Most people?” Since “most people” don’t know what podcasting is, I can’t see how their confusion — mixing up an audio book with a talk-show — is authoritative.
pwb, does that mean that if enough people believe the world is flat, or that angels exist, then it’s true?
Podcasting has a clear meaning, which is distinct from “audiobook”, and it’s very easy to understand the difference.
However, since you managed to mis-parse the sentence “The paper has had plenty of time to append a note to the interview with Friedman correcting his nonsense” – try reading it with a comma after “Friedman” – then perhaps you’re not going to get that.
Pingback: City Comforts, the blog
Lance,
Happy New Year –
It would be nice to hear from you –
Tom