Dave-- you're exactly right. However some journalists (like me...) are in between. I spent the past 16 years as a reporter for IT trade magazines, however, I also spent the past 10 years (top long!) doing primary research for my computer history book. While writing it, my challenge is to make it appeal to lay readers while being well-researched enough for the SIGCIS audience. I hope to finish the book one of these years and introduce a new topic (history of mobile/portable computing) that really hasn't ever been covered in book form. On Oct 7, 2014, Dave Walden <dave.walden.family@gmail.com> wrote:
I think it may be important to distinguish the "journalist"-historians who write books (e.g., Isaacson, Kidder) from the periodical-journalists who write for monthly, weekly, or daily publications. My impression is that the former do years of reading and interviewing of participants (Isaacson in one of the podcasts said he had been collecting material for many years) and the result (while maybe somewhat misguided) is mainly their interpretation (or at least good story); and the latter have a tendency to use less primary sources, interview people who have done research rather than participants, etc., with much more control exerted by editors (as Nathan said). See Kidder's book _Good Prose: The Art of Non-fictioni_ co-authored by his decades-long editor.
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members