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[womzilla]

You know how it has become a commonplace of smart people that any newspaper article on a subject about which you have actual knowledge will be full of stupid mistakes?

Well, in your face: here's an article on Mid-South Con from the New York Times which pretty much gets it all right. More, it actually presents the entire endeavor as worthwhile, conveying much of the appeal of conventions. It even dips into the splintering of fandom and the death of sf.

(Alas, this article will be online only for another couple of days, I think.)

(courtesy of nancylebov.)

[Updated: I just realized that the article is written by David Iztkoff, who runs the occasional sf column for the New York Times Book Review. This makes it less surprising, but it shows that if reporters actually know their subject, they can treat it well.]

Comments

[avram]

Thus reinforcing my belief that the only worthwhile reporting comes from journalists who already have specialized knowledge of the topic.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Possibly, but the commonplace I quoted is usually followed by "Now imagine how much they're getting wrong about things like politics." If the reporter's regular beat is politics, or fashion, or whatever, it's quite possible that they'll at least understand it well enough that they could get the details right.