Dear readers, There is a stereotype, not entirely unfounded, that we journalists leap at any depiction of ourselves or our profession in books or onscreen. Naturally, I was intrigued to learn there's a new novel about a fact checker: one of those behind-the-scenes types who perform an essential role in journalism but rarely get the glamour-puss treatment. "The Fact Checker," by Austin Kelley (himself a former checker), follows a young man in 2004 New York working at a somewhat fusty and highbrow periodical, though he's quite comfortable in his job. Our unnamed narrator is mopey when it comes to love and experiencing some sort of low-level masculine crisis — "a meat eater who's never killed anything" — when a cryptic figure he meets in the course of his work sends him scrambling. I asked one of the Book Review's own checkers, Miguel Salazar, for his take on what people often get wrong about his work. There's a lot of pressure in making sure every "hard" fact we include is bulletproof. But having been around the block I've realized the job can be deceptively slippery! We're always negotiating with writers and editors on the value of evidence and how it is presented. It feels like I'm essentially mediating what reality is with other journalists and arriving at a shared interpretation of it for public consumption. Heady stuff! He went on: I feel there is a timelessness to our endeavor that's persisted despite the rise of the internet, smartphones, social media and A.I., and appreciate that there are novels capturing the level of uncertainty. Ultimately, aren't we all just trying to make sense of this world? I think we can all agree on that, no matter what personal crises we are wading through at the moment. See you on Friday. In other news
Love this email? Forward to a friend. Want this email? Sign-up here. Have a suggestion for this email? Then send us a note at books@nytimes.com.
|
