Monday, December 01, 2008

How Many Levels of 'Unknowns' does it take to make History?



Great blog on one of those Front Page of History Scenes that probably didn't happen...
Henry Morton Stanley pretended to have written something in his diary on November 23rd, 1871. Perhaps he did, though the pages in his diary are torn out, so we can’t know for sure. The event he claimed to have recorded — but probably didn’t — also probably didn’t happen, or at least not the way it’s usually “remembered.” He most likely didn’t say “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” on meeting the older doctor (Tim Jeal says so in his new biography), and he didn’t even meet him in the jungle at all. He met him in a town...



From the Edge of the American West blog.


And here is an interesting take on the above from the Nieman Journalism blog.

The value of unmediated information, direct from the source closest to the scene, versus the value of an older tradition that filters that information through the methods and mores of a profession? Substitute “those bloggers” for Stanley and “the mainstream media” for the Royal Geographic Society....



Is it just speed we're talking about...?

No comments: