I wrote a story that became a legend, then discovered it wasn’t true
cjr.org
cjr.org
Speaking as a former firefighter, I would say "Yes. Yes, that is enough."
As far as I'm concerned, anybody who runs towards a fire in an attempt to help others, when everyone else is running away, is a hero. Doesn't matter if you're "officially" a firefighter, or anything else. If you display the behavior, the willingness to sacrifice, the bravery, of a firefighter, then you are one of the brotherhood. And if you pay the ultimate sacrifice in the process, you are a hero to be cherished, whether you saved 10 people, or none.
And before anybody says it... yes, I know the old saw about "not becoming another casualty, and one more person to be rescued" as well as anyone. I used to teach that stuff. But at the end of the day, while we might not want civilians or untrained/unequipped people running into fires, you still have to respect and honor the courage of the people who are willing to do that.
But agreed on all points.
Is it time to start building a 'web of trust' for information 'chunks', as the original PGP set out to do in the 90's for people? Should we just acknowledge that we've lost the battle on 'finding the Truth'? Those are more material questions that whether or not this one guy saved 0 or 10 people 20 years ago, and whether that warrants a motorcycle tribute ride to be named after him.
I would agree that that's not all the story is about. It just happens the be the part that touched a nerve for me. Otherwise, I don't disagree with you. I think there are a lot of open questions about understanding the nature of "truth" on the web these days.
Is it time to start building a 'web of trust' for information 'chunks', as the original PGP set out to do in the 90's for people?
Good question. Skeptics will say that this approach has been proven to not work. I might counter that we just haven't figured out how to get the details right yet.
Fair enough, I guess we agree then :)
Most likely everything. That is why any information that isn't reproducible should be considered just a story, nothing more. There might be some value to take away from it, but nothing much better than what you can get from fiction. I don't get how anyone that has played Telephone can take history seriously, there's just no chance of getting an accurate version. Even news from yesterday, with recorded audio and video, doesn't capture enough to get important details right.
1. What really happened.
2. How the people involved remember it.
3. How it gets recorded.
It's usually (or, "often enough") the major themes that survive. Assuming that everything is a lie means you're paranoid. Assuming that everybody lies means you're sensible.
How truth survives through that is left as an exercise for the reader.
Reading the article made me feel deflated, powerless about the spread of disinformation. But mindcrime's top-level comment told me what to do (risk my life to help others), and the story made me imagine a situation when I could do that. Even though I now know the story isn't true, the way I would apply the lesson is still the same.
Having read the comment and thought about how my actions can change in the future, I now feel hopeful. I'm grateful for this community for providing that.
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to be prescriptive here. I don't mean to tell you to go out and look for a chance to die young by risking your life. And even among trained emergency responders, there's a constant need to remind people in training to not develop "hero complex" and wind up risking yourself needlessly. Even firefighters do have situations where they opt for "discretion as the better part of valor."
All I intend to say is that those people who, when presented with an emergency situation, elect to put themselves in harms way for the sake of others, earn - in my mind - a certain measure of nobility and special esteem. But I don't want to encourage people to put themselves in danger when they really aren't prepared / equipped to help. I know that seems like a subtle distinction, but I'd encourage everyone to keep it in mind.
A heroic death may be noble, but it's still a death. And every death is a tragedy for someone. Wives, husbands, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends, etc. may feel terrific pride in such an event, but they'll also feel terrible pain.
Just in this thread, we have competing advice of "being a hero matters more than being right" vs "trying to be a hero creates another victim to rescue, harming who you are trying to help"
Regarding heroes- if you open the hatch and look on the lives of the indivdual, its always greyish. Nobodys perfect. But if you run into the wrong direction. Be it because bowl cancer is eating away at you, because you have a psychatric condition, are a adrenaline junkie or whatever - and you do attempt to help one person- you are a hero. And all passive-agressive microanalyzing as downsizing by those who would not do that- cant take that away.
This may be the most evocative sentence I've read this year.
incandescent margarine ,{{ ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires }} of abandoned vehicles
> Me too!
The agent: "river of incandescent margarine".
What it did: "ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires"
What it did it to: "abandoned vehicles"
I do find "incandescent" hard to imagine. Because it's just fat, and it'll carbonize before becoming incandescent. Maybe "flaming margarine" or something. Also, "listened" indicated that they heard, but didn't see.
It doesn't really need punctuation. But maybe this would be clearer:
They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited the fuel tanks, and burst the tires, of abandoned vehicles.
Or maybe:
They listened as a river of incandescent margarine engulfed abandoned vehicles, igniting fuel tanks and bursting tires.
This is a good example of why re-writing another person's stories is not journalism. I've been saying that for over 25 years in newsrooms across the country. Eventually, your laziness bites you.
> I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring them to talk to me.
> I went to the tunnel control center, and to the local ‘Carabinieri’ post, where I spoke to managers and cops who must have known that the accounts published in 1999 were exaggerated. But all the witnesses and officials were under gag orders, and records – including security video and recordings of radio traffic – were sealed due to ongoing criminal and civil investigations.
> As I write this, I’ve spent the last week going back over 76 pages of handwritten notes I made on that trip.
He tried to. And when that didn't turn up anything, he decided to go on ahead anyway with no evidence of his own.
> Four years later, in 2003, I was living in France. And my curiosity finally got the better of me. I traveled to Val d’Aosta on my own dime to write a story that I eventually came to call “Searching for Spadino.
> I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring them to talk to me. Through them, I felt I got to know a subject who was so self-effacing that his closest friends could barely even find a snapshot of him.
I'm very frustrated with the author for not crediting the New York Times. I don't think it's a coincidence that the story fell apart when he was commissioned to do a piece for an outfit with journalistic standards. It's possible the NYT's name opened some doors for him, too, but he doesn't describe experiencing any frustration or serious misgivings in his original investigation. He just says "in hindsight" and "I suppose a part of me always worried" but that's fifteen years too late. Clearly he approached it more critically this time, but he leaves the reason for that completely unexamined.
EDIT: Also, "He was just a quiet man who had tried to do the right thing in the face of an inferno. And maybe that is enough," clearly thinking about himself, clearly not taking responsibility.
So it seems one of the lessons for journalists is: when you encounter witnesses that behave as if under gag orders, there is a real story underneath, and you must catalogue it as a story to return to repeatedly to pressure the unsealing or reinvestigate after unsealing... I also think it's quite perverse that witnesses are under gag orders...
Sounds more heroic than anything I am planning on.
Why beat up on the guy because reporters at the time and afterwards got their facts wrong.
It's not the motorcyclists fault the reporter was wrong but the sentence in the article where the reporter describes discovering his own mistake something like "married to him for years and now felt cheated on" sounds ... awful.
I'm not sure he planned on it, either. I think sometimes people do things because, when they find themselves in the situation, they can't not do it. (But I'm still alive, so what do I know?)
What's funny is once you're doing the thing it's not so automatic. You are making conscious decisions at that point. Except your brain feels like a supercomputer because of adrenaline or whatever else is flooding the system.
In hindsight of course I know I was probably flopping around like an overweight fish out of water hahaha
Were is anyone beating up on the guy? You are imagining things that aren't there.