Ever wonder how the New Yorker gets their facts right? Here’s a hint: it’s not the editor.
In an excerpt from The Art of Making Magazines: On Being an Editor and Other Views from the Industry, chapter five, “Fact-Checking at The New Yorker,” explores the evolution of The New Yorker fact-checking department and their efforts to get the story right. This excerpt was a lecture given by Peter Canby, The New Yorker fact-checking director. It opens:
Preventing errors from appearing in the magazine is not a simple process. For openers, you need to know that in addition to the basic reporting pieces, we also check “The Talk of the Town,” the critics, fiction, poetry, cartoons, art, captions, the table of contents, certain of the several-paragraph-long essays in the “Goings On” section. We also fact-check the contributors page, the cover wrap, the letters column, all the press releases, and a good deal of the recently mounted Web site.
Happy reading!
