Linking and Fact-checking: Best Served Together

[Splice Today]

Over at Splice Today, I’ve got a story on linking, fact-checking, and Nicholson Baker’s great New Yorker essay on the Kindle. Again, the point isn’t that Baker and co. made a mistake—and it’s about as small a mistake as one can make—but that the mistake would have been prevented if the New Yorker used the full power of online publishing, in addition to their normally excellent fact-checking department.

Anyway, as part of the piece, I emailed the New Yorker at their generic themail@newyorker.com address to ask about the error. My email—and, if it arrives, their response—is after the jump.

Dear New Yorker editors:

I hope this finds you well. While I admit it’s a minor one, I wanted to draw your attention to a mistake in Nicholson Baker’s excellent essay on the Kindle. Early in the piece, Mr. Baker writes, “(See the YouTube video called ‘Jeff Bezos Laughing Freakishly Loud on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.’)” But the only YouTube video I can find is titled “Jeff Bezos Laughing Freakishly Hard on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” (You can see that video here.)

First, is this the video Mr. Baker meant to cite, or is there another one I’m overlooking? Second, and to satisfy my curiosity, was the error Mr. Baker’s, or was it introduced in the fact-checking period?

Thanks for your time.

Best wishes,

Craig Fehrman