Will Posts

Journalistic Integrity is at Stake Here

So, Chris Riemenschneider, the Strib’s music critic, had an item about Wilco’s Duluth concert in this week’s Vita.MN. In it, he quoted Jeff Tweedy as saying,  “This teenager came up to us and said he was mayor. We think it’s legit.”

I couldn’t help but notice this is not quite the same quote that PDDers have repeated. In the post with the picture of our fresh-faced mayor alongsideWilco, for instance, the quote is “‘teenaged boy who claims he’s the mayor.” (And I believe that post was authored by none other than our fresh-faced mayor himself, no?)

That leads me to wonder which it was. The omission of “the” before “mayor” could have been a typo on Riemenschneider’s part, but I wondered about “teenager” v. “teenaged boy,”  “said” v. “claims” and past v. present tense.

It’s no biggie, of course. I just remember that after the Sept. 4, 2007 concert, Riemenschneider reproduced Tweedy’s quote about the ore boat/fog/bridge differently than I recalled it myself. Is he just paying too close attention to the music to get quotes verbatim (which is arguably okay for a music critic)? Were the PBRs flowing too freely for anyone to take too close a notice of Tweedy’s comment? Was the concert so good no one really cares about this except me?

Discuss.

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