Date:    Tue, 2 Jun 1998 09:31:33 -0400
<br>From:    Jesse T Sheidlower <jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PANIX.COM>
<br>Subject: Re: bogus anecdotes
<br>
<br>> Bethany Dumas wrote:
<br>> >Someone questioned the veracity of the RH elevator narrative. (Sorry, I
<br>> >deleted before I noted who wrote it.) Certainly, some of the
<br>> >Metropolitan Diary entries are bogus. Recently, I read there the old urban
<br>> >legend about the nun who bought the package of cookies, encountered a man
<br>> >who helped himself, etc. -- she, of course, later finds her package of
<br>> >cookies in her bag and realizes that she was the one who helped herself
<br>> >to somebody else's cookies. My point: I do not recall reading any
<br>> >published research about the hallmarks of bogus narratives, about what it
<br>> >is I know that lets me know that a narrative is bogus. Is there
<br>> >something? Is someone working on this?
<br>
<br>Greg Downing replied:
<br>> A very common "authentifying" feature of such folklore is either "I was
<br>> there" or "I heard it from someone who was there." I imagine that, as
<br>> journalists, NYTimes writers are more likely to say that they themselves
<br>> have obtained the information at first hand.
<br>
<br>Two points:
<br>
<br>(1) The "Metropolitan Diary" section isn't written by Times journalists; it
<br>is a section of anecdotes sent in by readers, some of whom (though not
<br>this one) choose to remain unidentified. If anyone was really interested
<br>in the voracity [tm a.f.u.] of this story, they [sic] could probably
<br>get in touch with the contributor.
<br>
<br>(2) As someone who has been taking the elevators at RH at least four times
<br>a day for the past eight years or so, I can say that this anecdote is
<br>staggeringly unlikely to have really occurred.
<br>
<br>Jesse Sheidlower
<br><jester[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]panix.com>
<br>