{"id":2480,"date":"2012-03-17T22:03:57","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T04:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/?p=2480"},"modified":"2012-03-17T22:03:57","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T04:03:57","slug":"facts-are-stupid-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/2012\/03\/17\/facts-are-stupid-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Facts are stupid things"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two recent events that are very much of a piece.<\/p>\n<p>First, the recent publication of the book &#8220;The Lifespan of a Fact&#8221;, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/02\/26\/books\/review\/the-lifespan-of-a-fact-by-john-dagata-and-jim-fingal.html\">reviewed in the NYTimes.<\/a> This documents the years-long fight between the author of a supposedly non-fiction article and his fact-checker, the fact-checker&#8217;s reverence for factual accuracy, and the author&#8217;s disdain for it when mere facts get in the way of Truth.<\/p>\n<p>Second, the kerfuffle over This American Life running a version of Mike Daisey&#8217;s performance piece, &#8220;The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,&#8221; which turns out to be a fabrication. Mike Daisey <a href=\"http:\/\/mikedaisey.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/statement-on-tal.html\">more or less admits to his own fabrications<\/a>, but defends them because he&#8217;s not a journalist.<\/p>\n<p>These cases seem to go beyond those of Stephen Glass or Jayson Blaire: at some level, I think those guys knew they were in the wrong. These guys see nothing wrong with making shit up and passing it off as fact. I thought Stephen Colbert dismantled this idea years ago when he coined the word &#8220;truthiness.&#8221; Apparently not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Truthiness in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[169,171,250,449],"class_list":["post-2480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","tag-fabulism","tag-facts","tag-journalism","tag-truthiness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/8stars.org\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}