Lifespan of a Fact

This book is easy to read and kept me much more entertained than I thought it would. You have to be the kind of person who likes nuance and detail however. I can see why it was such a success on Broadway because some people would not have the patience to read it on the page, but it is wonderfully witty.For the people who see it as a criticism of bad journalism, I think they're missing the point. D'Agata isn't really a journalist, he's a writer of creative non-fiction essays. While the two can overlap, students of creative non-fiction will tell you they are miserable in journalism classes that tell them you have to write a certain way with a certain format and certain rules. And there's a reason for that-- journalism is an art and a calling-- real journalism that does deep research and then fact checks everything before it is seen is what we need on the news and giving us the facts to make actual decisions about policy and life or death matters and how to vote. In the era of false news, we can see the problem with people who are lazy and call themselves journalists but don't do the work.... Or the people who just lie intentionally to mislead people.What John does and what many writers do .. is never meant to be journalism. It is meant to tell a story about something rooted in truth but to pull the reader in in such a way that they empathize and they feel the story and they grow as a human being and they think about something in a new way. One isn't writing creative non-fiction to report news.... most good readers can tell the difference. I remember a pastor was saying that everything in the Bible does not have to be factually accurate to be speaking truth and you might not be religious so that might not mean anything to you.... But I consider it the same here. Journalism is fact and creative non-fiction can be truth but that doesn't necessarily mean it's fact. So it's not that D'Agata is being lazy as a journalist. He's not trying to be a journalist. That's like saying Picasso didn't know how to paint a wall correctly. He wasn't trying to be a wall painter. He was trying to be an artist. We wouldn't ask him to paint a wall. We're not going to read an essay by D'Agata to find out the facts about a bill going through Congress, but maybe you'll read an essay and it will make you think about how politicians get things done, which is a completely different thing, but still relevant and worth thinking about.

LORD Chancellor. Now, sir, what excuse have you to offer for having disobeyed an order of the Court of Chancery?STREPHON. My Lord, I know no Courts of Chancery; I go by Nature’s Acts of Parliament. The bees – the breeze – the seas – the rooks – the brooks – the gales – the vales – the fountains and the mountains cry, “You love this maiden – take her, we command you!” ’Tis writ in heaven by the bright barbèd dart that leaps forth into lurid light from each grim thundercloud. The very rain pours forth her sad and sodden sympathy! When chorused Nature bids me take my love, shall I reply, “Nay, but a certain Chancellor forbids it”? Sir, you are England's Lord High Chancellor, but are you Chancellor of birds and trees, king of the winds and prince of thunder-clouds?Ld. Chan. No.It's a nice point; I don't know that I ever met it before. But my difficulty is, that at present there's no evidence before the court that chorused Nature has interested herself in the matter.Streph. No evidence? You have my word for it. I tell you that she bade me take my love.Ld. Chan. Ah I but, my good sir, you mustn't tell us what she told you; it's not evidence. Now, an affidavit from a thunder- storm or a few words on oath from a heavy shower would meet with all the attention they deserve.Streph. And have you the heart to apply the prosaic rules of evidence to a case which bubbles over with poetical emotion?Iolanthe, Act IGilbert and Sullivan, 1882I am very frustrated with John D’Agata and Jim Fingal’s The Lifespan of a Fact. The four stars are because there is a lot here for a reader consider. The material is engaging and intelligent. There are words that may keep this from being read by many people and the suicide of a teen age is not likely to be a topic for family night reading.I first heard of John D’Agato and Jim Fingal’s book The Life Span of a Fact was in a review of the New York stage, I understood this to be about the problem of wiring a story in the age of “False News” and the apparent righteousness of body slamming a reporter. The media has a long history of self-critism and this looked to be a chance to read some intelligent arguments about the way the media have been politicized (actually it has been for many decades going back to when newspaper publishers routinely ran for and won office), and what has morphed into weaponized divisive argument that defies what America should be about.The Life Span is about none of that. In fact it is a debate who time has either gone or cannot be vital until more immediate public concerns have been brought down from the precipice of bombing, (here in the US, mass shooting (In France) and the deliberate state sponsored murder of a reporter (Jamal Khashoggi). In Life Span the case is made that by calling your product an essay, the author has infinite freedom to rewrite prosaic history in the name of whatever esoteric poetical emotional truth that fits the writer. At the time my used edition was published in 2012 this may have been an important topic. In 2018 it adds poison to a well where the water already been made bitter.The book itself is a dramatization of an actual series of exchanges between an essayist and a fact checker. The essay in question is about the Las Vegas suicide by jumping by a teenager, Levi Presley. We are not told if the editor intends to publish the essay as a literal recitation of the facts or as a dramatization of the facts.John D’Agato is a well-established essayist. He has definite beliefs about the term. In this book he will argue passionately that the writer must serve art in preference to fact if by doing so the essayist helps the reader to experience a deeper and more aesthetically meaningful appreciation of the events under discussion. In fact the essay is a poorly defined medium of expression and it is legitimately plastic in the matter of content. A case can be made that it occupies literary space between fiction and non-fiction.D’Agato goes further; insisting that the term Non-fiction is new and that facts are rarely absolute. He tosses out several famously named essayists arguing that the history of the essay is the history of exactly his understanding of the rights and duties of the essayist. Earlier he established that in taking this assignment he made it clear to the editor that he is not a reporter and that he will not be bound by the rules of journalism.Perhaps on the strength of this warning, Jim Fingal is tasked with fact checking the proposed article and in writing is ordered to “comb through this marking anything and everything…” In taking the assignment, Jim is at once literal and increasingly meticulous and unforgiving. His questions everything from the number of seconds given for the boy’s fall to the color of bricks and the exact routes between locations.The author comes off as an arrogant, defender of his every invention and demonstrably wrong statement. The Fact Checker become so focused on his mission he will even challenge the facts as given in the report from the Coroner’s office.Ultimately I had little patience with either person.D’Agata will on two occasions make appeals to authority. In logic this argument can count as a fallacy or not. The way D’Agata applies the technique it is fallacious. He states the rules were set out by the ancient Roman orator, Cicero, among other and does not state those laws.Worse the writer states that If his reader feels betrayed when they realize how often an ostensibly nonfiction article is in fact fictional, he turns on the readership, complaining that they are too poorly educated to understand the writer’s rights. D’Agata could have made a reference to the failure of the 1913 audience to appreciate Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. There the portion of the audience that was known to reject anything new were when presented with ultra-modern music and lacking appreciation for the non-traditional choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky; they rioted.Instead the 2018 reader has the peculiar juxtaposing of a writer arguing for “Fake News” if the fakery is in service of art, and a time where the press is under increasing demands to clear not only the kinds of niggling fact checking of Fingal, but the creation of elaborate, fictional conspiracies to replace the prosaic, researched and fact checked.The Lifespan of a Fact is good writing. It is not apropos to the moment and does not serve D’Agata. It is a good book, but a prospective reader needs to know that this is not about journalism. It is a high-level discussion of a very particular type of writing, the essay.

A great book for attaining insight into the world of journalism and column writing. In this age of "fake news," this book brings the concepts of truth and fact into question. John's article is featured in the middle of the page, while his conversation with Jim, the fact checker, outlines the boarders. Their discussion focuses on a variety of issues surrounding the truth behind John's claims regarding a suicide in Las Vegas. From the color of the bricks on the Vegas Strip to the number of suicide victims discussed, this book makes you consider the necessity of writers always telling the truth and the fine line they have to walk between outright lying to the public and enticing the public to read their work. Would you care if a news reporter told you that the color of the president's tie was red when in reality it was blue, just because it sounded better within the paragraph? How about if 40 people were killed in a shootout instead of the 100 that a newsman reported? Which truth is more relevant? why? and is a reporter still a liar if he omits certain details? these are the questions addressed. A must have for understanding the balance between effective storytelling and accurate reportage.

interesting

This book is essential reading to observe how fiction filters fact. This determines how things that are precise may no longer be 'true' if they ever were int he first place. How truth is fragile, an army of marching metaphors. Perhaps a bodyguard of lies.The dialogue between essayist and fact-checker is revealing. The two writers oppose each other, needle one another and a form of truth actually emerges from this dialogue.In addition to the serious stuff above - the book is fun to read! After I finished reading it, I went back to re-read the central essay part. And yes, it was beautiful, moving and the rhythm was right, but no, it was not 100% accurate. Does that really matter?

A major disappointment (for me). I guess I was expecting something of a philosophical nature but it's completely different. A journalist follows someone around and tries to decide which parts of his story are real and which are not. Great detail, but I could not get interested.