You know, I was just guilty of doing what I always make fun of trolls for doing: commenting based on the title without reading the article first. But I've just read it and I see that I've also done the second thing I make fun of trolls for doing: attacking something other than what the author said. So I take back what I said. It's true, but beside the point.
I do still disagree with him slightly. It's not hard to imagine things one might want to tell about themselves only off the record. Especially about one's health: there are lots of medical conditions someone might be embarrassed to have other people know about.
But I was wrong to suggest that he distrusted off the record statements generally. It should have set off warning signals that I was accusing an experienced reporter of making such an elementary mistake.
One reason I didn't read the article was that it was so long. That's probably one reason people so often do this to me.
"That's probably one reason people so often do this to me."
It seems like a lot of the time when people do this to you it's because they've skipped over one of the qualifiers to your argument, especially when the qualifier comes a couple paragraphs before the actual anecdote or metaphor.
I do still disagree with him slightly. It's not hard to imagine things one might want to tell about themselves only off the record. Especially about one's health: there are lots of medical conditions someone might be embarrassed to have other people know about.
But I was wrong to suggest that he distrusted off the record statements generally. It should have set off warning signals that I was accusing an experienced reporter of making such an elementary mistake.
One reason I didn't read the article was that it was so long. That's probably one reason people so often do this to me.