Hacker News Reader

Comment by steve_g | Hacker News Reader

If you link through to the NYT article, you'll see a word-for-word dramatization of the deposition. The actual deposition video can be found on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYqXlRQrBN4

I found the choice of accents in the reconstruction interesting. The "dummy" expert witness had a southern accent, and the "smart" attorney had a mid-western/northern accent. In the actual deposition, both guys had southern accents.

Maybe it's unfair of me, but I think it shows bias on the part of the NYT.

View on HN

In the actual deposition, it looks like the expert actually does some calculation with the calculator. And I imagine he did the math and saw it was different from what he had stated.

The lawyer deposing him isn't an "expert" and isn't allowed to introduce evidence by himself (even if it is patently obvious). The only tool he has is to ask the expert in front of him. If the expert refuses to comply and show himself to be wrong, the lawyer has no recourse but to bring his own expert to court to refute him.

I don't know what went wrong here (measurements were off, conversion was off, drawing wasn't to scale, whole thing is wrong), but if the expert admits something isn't right, it would presumably allow the whole thing to be excluded. The expert is trying to recover and cover his ass here. He knows something isn't right, but probably knows that 68 feet is the right answer. Rather than sink his whole ship, he's trying to focus on the actual accident.

I think his testimony is worthless based on his mistake and the deposing lawyer was right to push the issue.

I am not a lawyer.

This is complete insanity to me. It's like having to accept 2+2=5! The lawyer deposing him has greater patience than I would ever possess.

I think you've misidentified the accents. In the real video the lawyer (whose firm is from Kansas fwiw) definitely has a weaker accent than the expert (who works in Missouri apparently fwiw). In all likelihood they tried to cast people who spoke like the original people.

It's possible that I was mistaken on the accents. But to me, the lawyer's accent sounded like Texas/Oklahoma (I know his firm was in Kansas) and the expert's accent sounded more Kentucky/Missouri.

I actually thought the lawyer's accent was the stronger one - maybe because it's less like mine. I'm from upstate NY originally, living in Ohio for the last 20 years.

Anyway, my comment was pretty US-centric to begin with, probably not that useful to folks from other countries.

Cheers.

I moved from the Florida panhandle (hey ya'll) to NYC. I have noticed a jingoistic attitude towards the Southern states. And towards people who live in rural areas.

From that original Youtube video, I noticed more of a melodic drawl in the lawyer's voice in the original than the expert's voice.

It does seem to me that NYT mixed up the accents, and that resulted from a bias on their part, however unintentional.

> jingoistic

Unless you're suggesting another civil war, I think you've chosen the wrong word.

How much money do you think the NYT put into making this video? How much should they have? At the end of the day you are at the mercy of who shows up at the casting call, their accents, and their ability to duplicate a regional accent.

Or, for all you know they were hired for the opposite rolls, but during takes they each exhibited affinity for the opposite role, and the casting was switched.

> How much should they have?

About zero, considering the actual deposition video is available on YouTube.

Ya, I liked the real video more. It wasn't "exciting", but it gave me a much better sense of what happened.

But then they couldn't run pre-roll ads on it.

That doesn't really work does it? That's like saying why would Hollywood make the dramatization of Man on Wire when there was already an effective documentary? Furthermore, why remake an existing drama when there is already and effective previous version?

They're trying to get eyeballs to the NYT and not Youtube or anywhere else. They control that media now, they can re-use it later or do whatever they want with it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com