How Sausage Is Made

You know the old saying about sausage, that it tastes good but you don't really want to see how it's made. Well today, Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor of the New York Times (that would be their ombudsman, but the Times had to have their own fancy title), gives a delicious behind the scenes look at how one of the Times' more interesting features is made -- and it's not pretty.

The features is called "Questions For" and it's basically a snarky interview with a more or less famous person. It runs every week in the Times magazine.

Hoyt goes behind the scenes and finds that:

• The 700-word Q&As are boiled down from transcripts running 10,000 words


• The author, Deborah Solomon, takes liberties with the transcript, moving things around, writing questions that fit the quote she wants to highlight, and so on. In other words, it's anything but a verbatim transcript, which is how it's presented.


• Column subjects have complained about this treatment to little avail. The only concession the paper has made has been to ask Solomon to provide the tape of the interview to her editors so they can check it if there's a complaint.


• In one case, one of my heroes, Ira Glass, objected to the way the transcript was edited and said he was pretty sure the tape would prove his point. Amazingly, the tape couldn't be located. Ironically, Ira makes his living taping people and presenting edited versions of their stories on his radio show, "This American Life," so presumably he knows a bit about how the sausage is made. And he still got burned.

Which brings us to the media relations tip that comes with (almost) every post here: don't take it for granted that the journalist who is interviewing you will get it right and quote you accurately. Make your own tape (Ira certainly should have). Have someone listen to your interview, take notes and email them to the reporter. Ask to be able to review your quotes or any other information attributed to you (but be careful to word this correctly -- do not to ask to see the whole story, that's a touchy subject for journalists).

****

Update: How the Sausage is Made, Part 2: Mr. Hoyt's column, while it takes a direct shot at the author and editors of the "Questions For" column, is itself a bit of, shall we say, lazy journalism. The story is basically a rewrite of an October 3 piece that appeared in the New York Press, which features the same examples as Hoyt's column and draws basically the same conclusion. The only difference, and it's a significant one, is that Hoyt is the Public Editor of the Times so his criticism hits even closer to home.  My two cents: Hoyt should have credited the original reporting of the New York Press and not presented it as his own.