I complained yesterday about the variations in journalistic reports of Rasheed Wallace's remarks after game 6 of the NBA finals, and went so far as to accuse the reporters involved of "laziness rising to the level of incompetence". But Edward Cook at Ralph the Sacred River points out that their stories were, in a certain sense, the gospel truth. Edward also takes up Richard Hershberger's reports of three versions of remarks in 2002 by A.J. Feeley, and explains why the Daily News is Markan, the Philadelphia Inquirer is Matthean, and the New York Times is Lukan.
In the face of this display of scholarship, I feel abashed for my little outburst of indignation. Tout comprendre rend très indulgent, I guess. But still, the modern world does offer inexpensive recording devices and simple software for accurate transcription, so I'll continue to believe that we have a right to expect journalists to make a reasonable attempt to approximate real quotes.
As a small contribution, here's a careful (orthographic) transcript of the relevant portion of the recorded post-game interview (the first Q&A in Wallace's segment):
| Rachel Nichols (ESPN): | Rasheed, you said this morning, you were talking about the play you made at the end of game 5, and you said that you were going to be particularly [pause] goin' after it tonight. How emotionally did you approach the game, and how do you feel you played? |
| Rasheed Wallace: | Uh, just- just went at it as- as another good game, uh, even though I did a bonehead play the other night, had to put it behind me, it was over with, and we just came out here and had to play tonight. |
| Rachel Nichols: | As a group, the Pistons all talk about how you guys are best when your backs are up against the wall. How do you feel that you personally react when you're under pressure? |
| Rasheed Wallace: | Uh, I mean it's no pressure, I don't- I don't feel pressure. Uh, no matter if it's the game winning shot, or I got the ball, you know, last possession, I don't feel no pressure. 'Cause you still got to go out there and play. |
It took me about five or ten minutes to find the right section in the on-line recording at nba.com, and about two minutes to make the transcript. Here's a comparison of what Rasheed actually said with what the various journalists reported (Dallas Morning News added):
| Ipsissima Verba Rasheedi | Uh, just- just went at it as- as another good game, uh, even though I did a bonehead play the other night, had to put it behind me, it was over with, and we just came out here and had to play tonight. [...Q elided...] Uh, I mean it's no pressure, I don't- I don't feel pressure. Uh, no matter if it's the game winning shot, or I got the ball, you know, last possession, I don't feel no pressure. 'Cause you still got to go out there and play. |
| NYT | I just made a bonehead play the other night. I had to put it behind me, it was over with and I had to come to play tonight. |
| Inquirer | Even though I did a bonehead play the other night, I just had to put it behind me. |
| Houston Chronicle | I did a bonehead play the other night. I had to put it behind me. It was over with. It was no pressure. I don't feel pressure. I had to do the things I needed to do. |
| Toronto Sun | I did a bonehead play the other night, but I had to put it behind me. |
| Dallas Morning News | I did a bonehead play the other night and I had to put it behind me. |
| Inside Hoops | Just went at it as another good game. Even though I did a bonehead play the other night, I had to put it behind me. It was over with, just came out and had to play tonight. |
I'm happy that everyone removed the filled pauses and false starts; and you have to deal with the fact that the interviewee is responding to (leading) questions. I wouldn't object to sticking in a dropped subject, which would give you a perfectly good quote like:
"Even though I did a bonehead play the other night, [I] had to put it behind me, it was over with, and we just came out here and had to play tonight."
The Houston Chronicle falsely combined the answers to two completely different (leading) questions, and also added in a phrase that Wallace never said at all ("I had to do the things I needed to do") -- I don't know what they teach in journalism school, but that strikes me as a violation of ethical principles. It doesn't make much difference here, but such techniques can be used to produce seriously misleading "quotations". If you wanted to quote Rasheed on pressure, you could render his answer to the second question -- in an independent set of quotation marks -- as something like:
"I don't feel pressure. No matter if it's the game winning shot, or I got the ball [on the] last possession, I don't feel no pressure. 'Cause you still got to go out there and play."
Now what's so hard about that?
Posted by Mark Liberman at June 24, 2005 01:10 AM