Chrilly, I was recently interviewed by someone in the MIT wrting department (about computer chess) and I was very hesitant to agree. I have some anxiety about how it will come out! However, the journalist seemed to really want to get the facts straight and I have some hope ...
In general, most journalists are looking for a phrase to latch on to, and they want their article to have appeal, often at the expense of annoying and mundane facts. I think it's possible to write very informative and interesting articles without taking any liberties, but unfortunately journalists usually prefer to cater to popular myth and misconceptions - milking it for all it's worth! I was also interviewd around the time of the Kasparov Deep Blue match on FOX news in Boston. The interview lasted about an hour but they took a single unimportant phrase out of the whole session which added some dramatic appeal to the piece. Of course the piece itself was about 30 seconds at most. What I remember most was that I actually refuted a misconception that they ignored. They used that same misconception to make it appeal to the audience. They were not looking for real content - just a sound bite. I didn't have any problem with this, they didn't misrepresent anything I said personally. They just needed an expert to make the piece seem like serious journalism. A problem they have to deal with is that in a very short time they have to try to get some information out. So they will say stupid things like "computers have proven they are better." They cannot give a course on probability and statistics and it's probably too much, at least for an american audience, to explain that winning a 4 game match doesn't consistitue "proof" of superiority in any scientfic sense. That's why I made the comment that if Mogo loses a match to a 6 dan player, and it's in the context of a disccusion where it is claimed that Mogo is a mid-kyu player only, it will come across as "proof" that Mogo really must be only a mid-kyu player, because it lost to a 6 dan! I know that's silly to us but not to the general population. After the Kasparov match I heard all kinds of nonsense that made my ears hurt! - Don On Wed, 2007-04-04 at 18:48 +0200, Chrilly wrote: > One further important rule. One should never be ironic in interviews. > The ironie is almost always lost. > E.g. when we played against Adams the default question was "why do you > not play against Kasparov". I could not stand this question anymore > and in a press conference shortly before the match I said "Because > Adams is the much stronger opponent". I got bad comments on this > sentence.. > Another rule is: Most journalists are writing almost all of the time > about themselves and not about the topic at hand. If one is interested > in a story, the easiest thing to get one is to invite the journalist > and to cook for them. They can than write how they liked the eating. > Which is already a story about themselves. > > Chrilly > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Sylvain Gelly > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; computer-go > Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 2:00 PM > Subject: Re: Re:[computer-go] MoGo > > > Thank you Don. > I did not know that, I am not used to :-). > > Then I'll stop worrying for these kind of things and stop > trying to give back the truth :). > > Bye, > Sylvain > > 2007/4/4, Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Wed, 2007-04-04 at 10:52 +0200, Sylvain Gelly > wrote: > > You should also know that we never claimed that > "MoGo plays 9x9 go > > near the level of a professional go player", which > is of course false, > > and even if it was true should ask for many many > experiments, and we > > would have never say that. > > It doesn't surprise me. It's common to get misquoted. > One thing that > is > even more common - at some point you are likely to > make a quote that > will > live forever (and it can even be a > misquote.) Someone will quote it, > they will latch onto it, and others will "cut and > paste" from the first > author who quoted (or misquoted) you! > > - Don > > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ > > > > > ______________________________________________________________ > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
