A small fact in the story

 Sarah Bakewell tells a story about Beacon Hill, the experimental school that the philosopher Bertrand Russell and his second wife, Dora, set up.

Russell had a lot of scandalous opinions. He was imprisoned for opposing World War I. He was a famous atheist. When the weather was hot, the Russells let the children run around naked.

The story goes that a journalist visited the school. He reported that he rang the bell and was greeted by a naked child.

Journalist: Oh my God!

Naked child: He doesn’t exist.

The child closed the door, and the journalist wrote a story.

It’s an engaging story. But the school didn’t have a doorbell at the front door.

Old newspaper editors spend a lot of time talking to young reporters about facts and about how most readers handle them. If you are a reader, and you know that a little fact at the beginning of a story is wrong, you doubt what follows. If a reporter who is just out of college and is new to town reports that the auto accident occurred on First Street near the intersection of Smith Street and all the readers know those two streets don’t intersect, they doubt the accuracy of the report. In some cases, readers might wonder whether the teller of the tale is just careless or is trying to deceive them. But all such doubts are fatal.

I edited newspapers for decades. Every edition had errors. But in news organizations, workers try to eliminate errors. It’s one of the things that sets them apart from political fronts and entertainment businesses.

• Source: Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible; New York: Penguin Press, 2023, p. 300.