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| Celestine Sibley |
I've been writing now for just shy of thirty (30) years so I was influenced by what I considered some of the best editors / authors / writers to come out of the south. Names like Reg Murphy, Lewis Grizzard, and Celestine Sibley (pictured at left). I've always done my best to follow their example and be as down-to-earth and honest in my writing as is humanly possible. For that reason, this story from today's New York Times was disconcerting to me:
Simply put, what has happened to ethics and honesty among some writers? Please don't get me wrong, I don't mean to be holier-than-thou, because I've made errors in my writing too . . . but never an intentional misstatement of facts and never a factual error severe enough to warrant a full-blown retraction of what I wrote. I had what, at least one editor considered, a "bad habit" of double-checking and occasionally triple-checking my facts. On more than one occasion, he and I locked horns because he changed my wording. (For some reason, I could never get him to grasp the concept that there's a legal difference between an incendiary fire and an arson fire and that they were terms that couldn't be used interchangeably. Of course this was also the man who thought nothing of going under yellow "Fire Line" tape to capture a picture he wanted.) Unfortunately it was actions such as his that lead to retractions like are discussed in the article above. I can only hope my unofficial mentors aren't spinning in their graves at what our beloved profession has become.
Until next time . . .
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