A great story, but...

Note: This was supposed to go up Wednesday but blogger didn't want to publish it for some reason. Sorry for the delay.



In my editorial duties an NPR this morning, I came across a great commentary piece by Lev Grossman, the literary critic for Time Magazine. The piece talks about the evolution of videogames as a storytelling art form, comparing them to movies, television and literature in that regard. The piece is well written and delivered, but it is almost ruined by the following quote about two thirds of the way through the story:



Borges would have gotten a kick out of Grand Theft Auto III, a game about gangsters set in 1980s Miami.



Any semi-serious gamer cringes at this point, knowing full well that the author is actually talking about Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and not Grand Theft Auto III. Some listeners won't even notice, but to many listeners, myself included, this small flub goes a long way toward ruining Mr. Grossman's credibility on the subject of video games. "Why should I listen to this guy," a listener might ask himself, "He doesn't even know the difference between GTA3 and Vice City."



Now I don't mean to pick on Mr. Grossman; his piece just happens to be the one I noticed at the moment. I'm using it as an illustrative example of how important it is to check and double check all your facts, even the seemingly inconsequential ones. Every factual mistake costs you a little bit of credibility to your readers and, as a journalist, credibility is one of your most important traits. The time it takes to read through the article one last time (or better yet, have someone else read it) to find that small error is well worth it.



Just looking through this piece one last time, I changed the word "televisions" in the first paragraph to the correct "television." How many of you would have stopped listening to me if I had spelled "television" wrong? I probably missed some other horrible grammar errors, but (here comes the overarching point:) every little bit helps.