Response to "posted on imamother, printed in Binah"

amother

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 8:39 pm

Hi, there!
I am on the editorial staff of Binah, and as soon as I saw this thread, I contacted several editors, to try to get to the bottom of this.
The writer of the article is a person of tremendous integrity. I know her very well. She would never plagiarize or unauthorizedly lift material from a forum. I called her today to get the background on her piece. She confirmed that the vignettes, stories and examples in her article were gathered from personal interviews.
And she is not on imamother, and had no knowledge of this post!

She feels terrible that her article unwittingly caused someone such agmas nefesh.
Unfortunately, there must have been more than one story of neighbors acting in this unfathomably inappropriate way.
Please be assured that Binah has many safeguards in place to protect people's privacy and make sure printed material is to a high standard on all fronts. We daven for S'yata D'shmaya to be a source of uplift, inspiration and enjoyment, and never of pain.
And may we all be zocheh to have, and be, good neighbors!
PS After receiving your email, the editors instructed the writer to call you and she will certainly do so!

trixx

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 8:49 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Not to take away from your very nice post
Just highlighting an issue we discussed in another thread about the editing in Jewish magazines

amother

Papaya

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 8:54 pm

OP, you seem very nice but I don't believe for a second that some posts are not started for informational purposes for articles and once they gathered up enough info and opinions, they make up an article on said topic. I've seen it more than once already. Writers/editors do as they please to get a good article.

amother

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 8:59 pm

the above was my response to trixx. then I saw amother papaya's post, so here is my answer to her:
I cannot speak for anyone else regarding your statement (if I understand you correctly) that you believe editors "plant" conversations in order to get articles. I can only speak for myself and my own colleagues- that is not our habit or practice!

trixx

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 9:10 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I was referring to the standards of English conventions or lack thereof

groisamomma

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 10:19 pm

trixx, that's a real word in the dictionary. If you're going to take issue, there's another sentence or two I'd pick on but I don't want to detract from OP's point.

OP, please understand that to people like me, all the frum editors are the same. (I don't remember the thread you're referring to, but there were certainly other instances of this on imamother.)

sky

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 10:52 pm

trixx wrote:

I was referring to the standards of English conventions or lack thereof

It’s never fair to critique an imamother post. Most are done on phones and aren’t proofread and sometimes you get pulled away in middle. My phone has a whole bunch spelling changed it does that are just wrong.

Fave

Tue, Jun 04 2019, 11:57 pm

groisamomma wrote:

Your being mean and out of context.

Rappel

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 12:11 am

Thank you, OP!

I'd like to add my own carrots to the pot: Hamodia has a very high standard of journalistic integrity, and Binah reflects that. I'm glad that you investigated the incident, and I'm glad that it turned out to not have been as it seemed.

(And who knows? If the details make it seem like it's the same neighborhood, then maybe the interviewee was complaining about the same neighbor!)

amother

Red

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 12:16 am

Fave wrote:

Your being mean and out of context.

"You're"

OP, one would expect that an editor would have proofread the post before submitting. If you are trying to clear your name, the best way to do it is to make sure that you are representing your company with clear and concise use of the English language.

WhatFor

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 12:24 am

amother [ Red ] wrote:

If you offer to pay her to edit her post, I bet she would.

Can someone link to the original thread? I'm curious what this is about. Thanks!

seeker

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 12:30 pm

I write and edit professionally and while I do try not to make a terrible fool of myself online, I certainly don't hold my personal/casual communication to the same standards as my professional work. It would take all the leisure out of socializing. It's also well known and accepted that conversations don't follow the same rules as formal writing. If you want to judge me by my imamother posts, that's fine - I have as much business as I can handle anyway.

Also, editorial staff includes more than just grammar checkers. OP could be involved in content selection or a host of other editorial roles.

ectomorph

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 12:35 pm

amother [ Tan ] wrote:

I posted about a problem that I was having and someone wrote about it in Oprah Magazine a few months later. I'm much more careful what I post about now.

It's possible for 2 people to have the same problem

seeker

Wed, Jun 05 2019, 12:40 pm

amother [ Red ] wrote:

Not only is it obnoxious to call out a person's misspelling (or possibly typo or autocorrect) in middle of a thread about something else, the person you're replying to is not even the OP and makes no claim to be involved in any publication.

"One would expect" a person to check before shaming the wrong person, or anyone at all.