Can you trust a blog post where two books it discusses have their authors incorrectly named?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course not! It only would take a few minutes to proofread, and check those references at Wikipedia, WorldCat or Amazon. Not doing so indicates a troubling lack of attention to detail (a willingness to instead trust your fallible memory).

 

At the Gem State Patriot News on October 1, 2021 there is an article (blog post) by Dr. John Livingston titled Why We Are Divided and who is To Blame? He claims that:

 

“Almost 20 years ago Hans Rosling and his wife Olga wrote and published the book FACTFULNESS. In the book they describe 10 reasons that people are either misled by others, or how they mislead themselves.”

 

The late Dr. Rosling’s wife was Agneta. His two co-authors for that 2018 book were his son Ola Rosling, and daughter-in law Anna Rosling Ronnlund (see article at Wikipedia). John confused his son with his wife, and left out his daughter-in law. I commented on that mistake and, of course, he said I was right.  

 

Dr. Livingston also claims:

 

“A very famous book written by Dr. Marshall McQuillan entitled THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE implanted in the minds of several generations of journalists and media practitioners the idea that an impression or a narrative was far more important than the actual reality.”

 

The Wikipedia article about that 1967 book instead lists the title as The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects, and the authors as Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore.  

 

On September 11, 2020 I blogged about Editing tips for speechwriters and other writers. In that post I mentioned two previous articles by Dr. Livingston with spelling errors. He is also the medical policy adviser for the Idaho Freedom Foundation, whose advice cannot be trusted.   

  

The image was adapted from a 1949 Make Friends with Books poster at the Library of Congress.