Re: Plagiarism, credit, and culture-reply, reply, reply

[Beth Rapp Young <youngbr@email.uah.edu>]

A belated response to Frank . . .

On Thu, 13 Feb 1997 CONDON@siena.edu wrote:

> I guess I disagree with what you're saying here.  I think
> it's true that we don't see citations in Time, for example,
> because the writers have the expectation that their readers
> are reading for entertainment.  But, frankly, I also think 
> that Time and other mainstream media publications vastly
> underrate the intelligence of their readers.  They behave
> as if (in the Althusserian sense (tra-la -- a citation))
> their readers have no need to test their writers' veracity, 
> the truth-value of the claims made, or to wonder who 
> benefits from representing "truth" in the ways that they
> do.  We are supposed to believe in the myth of disinterested
> journalism, but I would argue that Time and other citationless
> publications have very particular, vested interests in 
> having us believe and behave as if what they say is true.

I agree with everything you've said . . . except I'm not sure if I'd
apply it in such a sweeping way.  Probably some Time writers underrate
their readers' intelligence, and definitely Time and other
publications have a vested interest in acting as if they were the
_only_ source (making citations unnecessary).

But in fairness to Time, etc., many of their sources are not
accessible to readers anyway.  White House spokespeople are not likely
to talk to me, after all, and I don't know any "congressional
insiders." I think most of the time, news & other mainstream
publications are pretty good at saying who is speaking, even if they
don't give us a trail of citations to follow.  

And even when they don't, we can test the veracity, etc., of the
source we _do_ have--_Time_ (or whatever publication) itself.

Maybe I'm naive, but I feel confident that no text, with or without
citations, can withstand the intelligent reader!  :)

Beth Young

Dr. Beth Rapp Young
U of Alabama in Huntsville
YoungBR@email.uah.edu