The case for hiring biased book reviewers

Over on Slate, Jack Shafer says stamping out conflict of interest may result in a “fairer” book review. But will it produce a better one? He thinks not.
He says book reviews aren’t yearbook photos for authors to treasure. They’re for readers. Editors who obsess on fairness do so at the risk of inducing narcolepsy in their readers.

August 15, 2005 by Uncategorized 1

You may also like...

1 Response

  1. Porch Geese says:
    August 15, 2005 at 8:27 am

    I guess I can kinda understand that…
    One of the reasons I stopped listening to The World Cafe was that David Dye seems to like everything. I mean, he’s not as relentless a cheerleader as the folks at Not Lame, thank heavens. But after about a dozen times finding myself wishing he’d snap out of it and just ask the guest plainly, “Dude, where’d the magic go?”, I just gave up.

    But I’m thinking more along the lines of “I have my opinions, and expressing them is what I get paid for.” bias, not “I have my connections to the works that I review, and that’s how I get paid.” bias.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

LISNews Archives