Computer Mediated Communication (Task 2)
Speech
Acts in Email Communication: How English Speakers Negotiate Meanings and
Develop Understanding
Introduction
Computer
Mediated Communication (CMC) has emerged as a powerful, helpful and assistive
medium in facilitating communication and interaction, globally. Many researches
have proved that CMC has been enhancive in terms of interaction quality and
efficacy. Although few concerns were
raised in regards to its efficiency to be compared to ‘natural conversation’ or
face-to-face communication, CMC stands tall as a medium of communication with
its own merits. Rodriquez and Robina (1992) have
justified the need for scholars within the discipline of communication to study
computer-mediated communication when they argue, "Communication science
studies the relationship between messages and people. More and more of these
messages are being transmitted by computer networks; and more and more people
are finding themselves caught up in the global network of networks" (p.
1).
This paper aims to explore the quality of communication exchanges with
respect to one of the CMC mode which fall under the asynchronous category, Email.
Relying on the corpus (Email) as a material of analysis, this paper uses a
component of Discourse Analysis course which is speech acts to analyse the Email
conversation (see Appendix). This paper
also aims to see the relationship built between the Email correspondents based
on their conversation and to further explore the significance of CMC and its
relation towards daily communication and message conveyance effectiveness.
Meanwhile, the objectives of this paper are as the following:
- To explore the quality of information exchanges by using CMC medium (mode: Email)
- To identify types of speech acts used by the correspondents in their Emails conversation.
- To investigate the correspondents’ dogmatic status and level of authoritativeness
Thus, the research question of this study are:
- What is the quality information exchanges by using CMC medium (mode: Email)?
what are the types of speech acts used by correspondents in the Emails conversation?
What is the correspondents' dogmatic status and their level of authoritativeness?
This research used Email which is the most popular
Internet tool as the mode of the study. It is used to exchange messages between
individuals such as employers, employees, students and teachers in any
organizations and schools. The nine pages long Email that has been analysed was
on the conversation between the former employee and the public editor from New
York Times. The former employee demanded for correction on the article that has
been written about four years ago on NYTimes.com. The article claimed that he
has been fired from Microsoft when in fact he was quit.
The corpus which is an Email between the former
employee and the public editor from New York Times has been analysed based on
the speech acts framework. According to Green (2007), speech acts are part of
Discourse Analysis that is the staple of everyday communicative life and the
phenomenon of importance for students of language and communication. They are
the act of communications to express certain attitudes and the types of speech
acts being performed corresponds to the type of attitudes being expressed.
The corpus
was analysed based on the illocutionary speech acts. According to Bach, “the
levels of action beyond the act of utterance distinguished based on what one
does in saying something”. In other words, illocutionary acts are the social
function beyond the utterance. Based on the Levinson’s explanation,
illocutionary acts have been divided into five major categories which are
Representatives, Directives, Commissives, Expressives and Declaration (Justova,
2006).
1) Representatives are
utterances which commit the hearer to the truth of the expressed proposition
such as asserting and concluding.
2) Directives are
attempts by the speaker to get the addressee to do something such as ordering
and requesting.
3) Commissives commit
the speaker to some future course of action such as promising and offering.
4) Expressives
express a psychological state such as thanking and congratulating.
5) Declarations
effect immediate changes in the institutional state of affairs and which tend
to rely on elaborate extra-linguistic institutions.
Methodology
This research is a quantitative research analysis
where it focusses on analysing nine pages email transcript as the corpus. The
corpus was selected from an email conversation between Mr. Arthur Bovino,
Office of Public Editor, New York Times and Mr. Bennett Heselton.
This corpus is categorized on the speech acts specifically
on the Illocutionary Acts. The Illocutionary Acts consist of five types. They
are Representative, Directive, Commissive, Expressive and Declarative. The
number of each category is counted on their frequencies and percentages. It is
then put into the table and presented in the Finding section.
Literature Review
In today’s world where the
advancement of technology is growing up so fast, people tend to use all this
kind of technologies to ease up their interaction with other people form
different place at different times. There are various works and research concern
on the relationship of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and people
interactions. For instance, there is one study done by Payal Mehra which
investigates on the effect of CMC on the quality of organizational
communication at the workplace. She used Email and Instant Messaging (IM) as
the modes of investigation and the aspects that were being investigated were
information generation, information exchange and decision making. According to
Mehra (2010), “frequent use of e-mail may lead to devise newer ways to stay in
touch (such as social networking), thereby improving the quality of group
exchange in the long run. Frequent e-mail communication leads to media
familiarity which in turn improves social interaction at the workplace”. The
recipients are becoming more motivated to know about the sender which
eventually leads to the establishments of better group relations due to a
reduced cues environment offered by CMC.
From CMC, the speech acts from the
conversationalists can also be observed. Speech acts do not only occurs through
face-to-face interaction but they also happen through Email, Social Networking
Sites, Instant Messaging, etc. Speech act as defined by Johnstone (2002) as the
language that people use either in spoken or written form to mean of doing
thins or actions such as apologizing, promising, threatening, and requesting.
Speech acts is also used to interpret the meaning of the conversation and
manage the relationships between the communicators (Johnstone, 2002).
Results
Based on Table 1, it is clearly shown that Representatives speech act is the
most frequently used by both of the interlocutors with 44 times. Next, the
second higher speech act is Directives with 17 times of occurrences.
Expressives speech act fall under the third rank of occurrences which is 10
times followed by Commissives speech acts which take place only 5 times.
Nevertheless, there is no occurrence on Declarative speech act by both
interlocutors.
Graph 1 represents the percentage on the usage of speech acts by both
interlocutors. For Representatives speech act, Bovino shows higher percentage
of usage with 59% compared to Haselton which is only 41%. Secondly, Directives
speech act is used more by Haselton with 81% while Bovino only used 12%.
There is equal usage of Expressive speech act used by both Bovino and Haselton
with 50% each. In Commissives speech act, Bovino is the only one who used it.
However, both interlocutors did not use declarative speech act throughout their
communication.
Discussion
In answering the research questions mentioned in the
introduction, the graph is made as presented in the Appendix. For research
question 1: what is
the quality information exchanges by using CMC medium (mode: Email)? Based on
the Email conversation between Mr. Bennet Heselton and Mr. Arthur Bovino, it
has achieved its information exchange. Mr. Heselton managed to make an inquiry
by sending emails to the New York Times and he managed to get responses for his
inquiry. However, in this case, he still did not achieve its goal, that is to
correct the statement published in New York Times’s article. Thus, the
information exchange took place in the email conversation. However, it is still
did not achieved the goal of making an inquiry to correct the statements
published in the article.
On
the other hand, for the research question 2: What are the types of speech
acts used by correspondents in the Emails conversation? Based on the result gained from the corpus analysis,
it is found that Mr.Bennet Haselton had used several relevant speech acts; 18
times Representative, 15 times Directives, 5 times Expressives, and both 0 time
for Commissives and Declarations. As the email suggests, Mr. Bennet is
inquiring on his concerns about getting a correction for an online piece that was written four
years ago, hence, based on the Email, we can see that many times Mr. Haselton
imposes questions, claims statements and clarifies issues.
Specifically,
for representative speech acts, Mr. Haselton uses the acts of affirming, claiming, denying, disagreeing, informing,
insisting and stating in his Email contents. This shows that Mr. Haselton wants
to stand for his rights and tries to provide clarity for Mr. Bovino as well as
seeks to settle the issues. For example, in one of Mr. Haselton’s Email to Mr.
Bovino dated Nov 5 2004, “The discussion we've been having ever since then,
was whether you would correct the online copy of the article”, Mr. Haselton
here is using the representatives speech act, which is stating. Other than
that, most of the time, Mr. Haselton, as a person who wants to know the
progress and status of the issue, does a lot of inquiring and questioning,
directly falls under the speech act category of directives, i.e, on Mr.
Haselton’s Email dated Oct 19 2004; “I'm sorry, but I never heard back from
him after we talked on the phone. Did he send me an email after July
22nd? If he did, it must have been blocked or lost somehow; if you still
have a copy, can you re-send it?”
Finally, based on the
analysis, the frequency of expressive speech act used is the same for both
correspondents, Mr. Haselton and Mr. Bovino where thanking act is involved.
Taken from the Email excerpt dated Jul 22 2004; “Thanks for the follow-up
and feel free to contact me any time you need technical information for any
pieces about security or Internet technology in general”, here, Mr.
Haselton, the person who initiate the conversation and the person who is in
need of information and clarification is still practicing virtues by thanking
the Email receiver.
Overall, the whole Email
correspondence shows to the reader that the conversation was done successfully
by the correct use of language and speech acts practiced by the correspondents.
It implies that the conversation, although through Email and not face-to-face
conversation, is still working and successful by having both parties understood
the message conveyance and deliverance. By the usage of few speech acts by Mr.
Haselton (as mentioned before), it adds up to the relevance of the discourse
and it implies certain level or mood of formality and integrity. Hence, it can
be said that, Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is in a par excellent of
real life communication and it acts as a mode of successful interaction or
communication exchanges.
On the other hand, Mr. Arthur
Bovino has higher percentage of Representative speech acts than Mr. Bennett
Haselton. Mr Bovino has 26 times of making Representative speech acts whereas
Mr. Heselton made only 18 times. This is because Mr. Bovino has to answer the
Mr. Heselton questions and informing the progress of the Mr. Heselton’s request
on his problem. Example of Mr. Bovino’s answer to Mr. Heselton is “Yes, this is most certainly a
monitored e-mail address account.”
In contrast, Mr. Bovino rarely
made Directive speech acts in the Email conversation compared to Mr. Heselton
(15 times). As Mr. Bovino is more simply fulfilling and answering Mr.
Heselton’s requests and questions, only two times he made the directive type of
speech acts. Example of Mr. Arthur’s Directive speech acts is “You’ll have
to explain to me why you’re writing us again”.
Besides that, Mr. Bovino has
made five times of Commissive speech acts, whereas it is found that Mr.
Heselton did not make any Commissive speech acts. This significance number of
percentage gained is because Mr. Bovino made many times of promising and
agreeing to the request of Mr. Heselton upon his request to correct the
statement in the article published in New York Times.com. Example of Mr.
Arthur’s promise is “I have e-mailed Mr. Apcar about your concern and hope to have an answer
for you toward the end of that week.”
Moreover, both of the person
involve in this Email conversation has the same number of percentage of
Expressive speech acts (50%). This similarity is due to both person did the
apologizing and thanking among them as to show respect and neutralize the situation.
”Sorry for the delayed response.” is an example of Mr. Bovino’s
apologize to Mr. Heselton in the Email conversation. Furthermore,
another similarity is both individual did not perform any kind of declarative
type of speech acts because they did not perform any act of declaration which
caused the immediate effect in this Email conversation.
For
the research question 3: What are the correspondents' dogmatic status and their level
of authoritativeness? Based on the findings presented above, Mr. Bovino has
higher dogmatic status because he has more facts in answering the inquiry made
by Mr. Heselton. However, he answered negatively to the inquiry as he kept
delaying making responses and refused to fulfill the Mr. Heselton’s inquiry. Meanwhile,
Mr. Heseltion has higher authoritativeness as he made inquiry to the New York
Times to correct statements in the article which was published in the New York
Times website as it nearly cost him a job for the false statement made. He has
right to request for the correction for the article published.
Conclusion
As a conclusion, Computer-Mediated Communication has become a part of
everyday life as it can influence communication patterns and social networks. It
is proven that Email is an effective tool of communication between people in
various contexts. This is because both interlocutors did not have to arrange
for any appointments to settle the problem that has occurred since
computer-mediated communication is as effective as face-to-face communication.
The usage of speech acts are still being observed by communicators even though
it is only computer-mediated communication.
References
Bach, K. (n.d.). Speech Acts. Retrieved April
4, 2014, from Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy :
http://online.sfsu.edu/kbach/spchacts.html
Green,
M. (2007, July 3). Speech Acts. Retrieved April 4, 2014, from Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/
Johnstone, B. (2002). Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell
Justova, V 2006, Direct and indirect speech acts in English. Ph.
D thesis, Masaryk University in Brno
Mehra, P. (2010). The impact of Task Types and CMC
Technology on Exchange Quality: An Empirical Investigation. Research ,
31-52.
Rodriquez, G.
& Robina S. (1992). Communications, computers and networks. Communication Research Trends, 13, 1-32.
Appendix
Corpus
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:59:42 -0800 To: public@nytimes.com From:
Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: to ombudsman re: correction
from 2000
Dear Ombudsman, I got this email address from John Schwartz at the New
York Times, when I asked where I should write to request a correction. I'm
trying to get an online piece corrected that was written about four yeras
ago. In May 2000, Michael Brick wrote
an article for TheStreet.com, picked up by NYTimes.com, about an Internet
Explorer cookie hole that I found: http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/16tsc-soft.html.
The article claims at the end that I was fired from Microsoft, when in fact I
quit. The author claims he got that
impression from talking to me, and refused to change it after the article was
published. I tried following up with
other people I knew at NYTimes.com but kept hitting dead ends, so eventually
I gave up. Anyway, recently it *almost* cost me a job when someone looked up
my name and found the article claiming I'd been fired from Microsoft, so I
wanted to make a renewed attempt to get the article corrected. -Bennett
|
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 03:46:50 -0800 To: public@nytimes.com From:
Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re: to ombudsman re:
correction from 2000
Is this a monitored email address?
I sent the email below six weeks ago and never received a response.
-Bennett
|
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 14:19:49 -0400 To: Bennett Haselton
bennett@peacefire.org From: Public public@nytimes.com Subject: Re: to
ombudsman re: correction from 2000
Dear Mr. Haselton, yes, this is most certainly a monitored e-mail
address account. I send your concern to the senior editor in charge of
corrections, Bill Borders who informed me that the article you mention never
actually appeared in the paper but only on NYTimes.com. The matter has thus
been relayed to Len Apcar, the editor of NYTimes.com who unfortunately will
be away through April 14th. I have e-mailed Mr. Apcar about your concern and
hope to have an answer for you toward the end of that week.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor
|
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:59:02 -0700 To: Public public@nytimes.com
From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re: to ombudsman re:
correction from 2000
Hi, Thanks for letting me
know about the status. I assume Mr. Apcar is back now -- have you heard anything
back from him? –Bennett
|
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 20:45:12 -0400 To:
Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org From: Public public@nytimes.com
Subject: Re: to ombudsman re: correction from 2000
Dear Mr. Haselton, I'm checking in with Mr. Apcar and hope to have a
response next week. Sorry for the delayed response.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times
(212)556-7652
|
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 15:00:01 -0400 To: bennett@peacefire.org From:
Public public@nytimes.com Subject: to ombudsman re: correction from 2000
Dear Mr. Haselton, Thank you for your patience. I include a response
from Mr. Apcar regarding your concern: I reached Michael Brick, the staff
writer on the story several years ago involving Mr. Haselton. Michael says
this has come up before and that Michael is fully confident of the accuracy
of the story. In his view he stands by
the characterization of Mr. Haselton's departure from Microsoft and there is
absolutely nothing to correct.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor
|
From: "Bennett Haselton" bhas@speakeasy.net To:
"Public" public@nytimes.com Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 20:41:28 +0000
Subject: Re: to ombudsman re: correction from 2000
Huh -- is that all they do, is just go back and ask the original
reporter, and if the reporter says it's OK, then they leave it? But of course the reporter is always going
to say that. Is there any way to get somebody to actually fact-check it,
independent of the reporter? -Bennett
|
Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 11:53:14 -0400 To: bennett@peacefire.org From:
Public public@nytimes.com Subject: to ombudsman re: correction from 2000
Dear Mr. Haselton, I noted your concern to Mr. Okrent. I am sorry, we
would like to be helpful, but this matter has come down to your word against
Mr. Brick's and Microsoft will not comment because this is a personnel issue.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor
|
From: "Bennett Haselton" bhas@speakeasy.net To:
"Public" public@nytimes.com Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 18:38:32 +0000
Subject: Re: to ombudsman re: correction from 2000
I talked to Microsoft and they also have an alumni division, which I'm
a member of -- if you quit of your own accord, you can join the alumni
association, but if you're fired, you can't.
So since I'm a member, the alumni association can vouch for the fact
that I resigned voluntarily. If you
put me in touch with a fact-checker, can I put them in touch with the
Microsoft Alumni Association? -Bennett
|
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 02:53:27 -0700 To: "Public"
public@nytimes.com From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re:
to ombudsman re: correction from 2000
Hi, I didn't hear back about this -- I'd still like to know, if I put
the fact-checkerin touch with the Microsoft Alumni division so they can
confirm their records show that I left voluntarily? –Bennett
|
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 15:54:45 -0400 To: Bennett Haselton
bennett@peacefire.org From: Public public@nytimes.com Subject: Re: to
ombudsman re: correction from 2000
Dear Mr. Haselton, I'll follow up once again.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor
|
From: "Bennett Haselton" bhas@speakeasy.net To:
"Public" public@nytimes.com Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 20:09:28 +0000
Subject: Re: to ombudsman re:
correction from 2000
Thanks,
I appreciate your time.
|
From: "Bennett Haselton" bhas@speakeasy.net To:
borders@nytimes.com, public@nytimes.com Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 18:52:29 +0000
Subject: just heard from Nicole; thanks
Hi Bill and Arthur, Just heard from Nicole and she said you did call
and confirm that I had left MS in good standing; thanks. I think the article
did tend to make me sound like a disgrunted fired employee who got revenge by
taking proprietary company secrets and publicizing them. One other thing he didn't mention is that I
found the Internet Explorer security hole several months after quitting
Microsoft, on my own time. It wasn't
based on anything proprietary that I learned while I worked there.
Publicizing proprietary company information is grossly unethical, and not
something I would ever consider -- not to mention the fact that I would be
virtually guaranteed to be sued by Microsoft for everything I owned. Thanks
for the follow-up and feel free to contact me any time you need technical
information for any pieces about security or Internet technology in general,
even if you decide not to quote me :) –Bennett
|
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004
17:06:08 -0400 To: bennett@peacefire.org From: Public public@nytimes.com
Subject: Re: just heard from Nicole; thanks
Dear Mr.
Haselton, Thanks for the note.
Sincerely,
Arthur
Bovino, Office of the Public Editor
|
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 19:29:19 -0700 To: borders@nytimes.com,
public@nytimes.com From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re:
just heard from Nicole; thanks
Hi Bill and Arthur, I hadn't heard anything since we talked on the
phone a month ago -- did you get the information you needed from Nicole with
the Microsoft Alumni group? -Bennett
|
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 10:34:28 -0400 To: Bennett Haselton
bennett@peacefire.org From: Public public@nytimes.com Subject: Re: just heard
from Nicole; thanks
Dear Bennett, It was my understanding that Mr. Borders had spoken with
you and resolved this issue. Mr. Borders is away on vacation until Thursday.
You are welcome to contact us then when I might speak with him.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times
|
From: "Bennett Haselton" bhas@speakeasy.net To:
"Public" public@nytimes.com Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 18:05:13 +0000
Subject: Re: just heard from Nicole;
thanks
He called me on the phone and he sounded like he was thinking about
making the correction, or at least looking into it further, but after that I
hadn't heard back from him yet. –Bennett
|
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:09:14 -0400 To: bennett@peacefire.org From:
Public public@nytimes.com Subject: Re:
just heard from Nicole; thanks
Dear Bennett, As I said, Mr. Borders is on vacation. You're welcome to
drop us a line on Thursday.
Sincerely, Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor, The New York
Times
|
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 09:51:06 -0700 To: borders@nytimes.com,
public@nytimes.com From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject:
after confirmation from Nicole?
Hi Bill and Arthur, A few weeks ago I heard from Nicole at the
Microsoft alumni org, and she said she had confirmed with you on the phone
that I had left Microsoft in good standing and wasn't fired. Was there any other information I can
provide? (This is in reference to the
article at
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/16tsc-soft.html
which has says I was sacked at Microsoft...) -Bennett
|
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 17:36:18 -0400 To: Bennett Haselton
<bennett@peacefire.org>
From: Public public@nytimes.com Subject: Re: after confirmation from
Nicole?
Dear Mr. Haselton, Mr. Borders informed me that he had settled this
issue with you quite some time ago so you'll have to explain to me why you're
writing us again.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times
|
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 03:25:53 -0700 To: Public public@nytimes.com
From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re: after confirmation
from Nicole?
I'm sorry, but I never heard back from him after we talked on the
phone. Did he send me an email after
July 22nd? If he did, it must have
been blocked or lost somehow; if you still have a copy, can you re-send it?
The last I heard was that he had contacted Nicole and she confirmed that I
left Microsoft in good standing. So I
was under the impression they were in the process of correcting the article
at http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/16tsc-soft.html which says I was fired. But
then I never heard anything after that.
If he sent me an email it must not have been delivered somehow. –Bennett
|
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 15:35:15 -0400 To: Bennett Haselton
bennett@peacefire.org From: Public public@nytimes.com Subject: Re: after
confirmation from Nicole?
Dear Mr. Haselton, My understanding was that the phone conversation
resolved the issue but I checked with Mr. Borders again today. Mr. Borders
said that after quite a bit of investigation involving Mr. Brick and editors
at the paper and at NYTimes.com, he is satisfied that the piece that offended
you those years ago never appeared in The New York Times and that a
correction is not warranted. As far as this office is concerned this matter
is resolved.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times
|
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:17:05 -0700 To: Public public@nytimes.com
From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re: after confirmation
from Nicole?
I didn't get a response; can you confirm: Are you saying that the Office of the
Public Editor do NOT make corrections to content that was published on the
Web site, they only handle corrections to stories that appeared in print?
-Bennett
|
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 15:57:23 -0500 To: bennett@peacefire.org From:
Public public@nytimes.com Subject: 10/20 Reader Concern
Dear Mr. Haselton, I checked in with Mr. Okrent and he indicated that
we've said all we have to say on this subject.
Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times
|
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 22:06:06 -0800 To: Public public@nytimes.com
From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re: 10/20 Reader
Concern
You're not even going to give me a Yes or No answer to the question:
"Do you handle corrections to the Web site in addition to the print
edition?" That's getting a bit
silly, don't you think? –Bennett
|
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 01:13:39 -0500 To: Bennett Haselton
<bennett@peacefire.org>
From: Public public@nytimes.com Subject: Re: 10/20 Reader Concern
Dear Mr. Haselton,
I don't think any of our repeated answers to you over these past months
have given you any indication that we handle any matters in a
"silly" manner. We have been responsive and followed up on your
concern despite the fact that as we have indicated your concern is with
coverage which occurred before the tenure of this office. While we are not in
charge of corrections, relaying readers' concerns about corrections in print
or on NYTimes.com has certainly become a part of what we do. As we have told
you we contacted Len Apcar from the website and noted to you that he and Bill
Borders do not believe a correction is warranted.
Sincerely,
Arthur
Bovino, Office of the Public Editor, The New York Times
|
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 00:58:40 -0800 To: Public public@nytimes.com
From: Bennett Haselton bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Re: 10/20 Reader
Concern
I didn't think it was "silly" until after you and Bill
Borders called Nicole on July 22 and she confirmed that I quit Microsoft in
good standing. Once you knew firsthand
that the article was wrong, that's when things got really bizarre. First, I
didn't hear anything until I wrote again on 10/16. (That's fine, thatcould have been an
oversight.) But then when I wrote to ask what happened, you said "this
matter is resolved" because that the article "never appeared in the
New York Times". We had already
established that in our emails back on April 5th! The discussion we've been having ever since
then, was whether you would correct the online copy of the article. Does Len
Apcar even know that you and Bill Borders called Nicole and confirmed that I
quit voluntarily? I know he didn't
want to do anything when he thought it was just my word against Michael
Brick's, but now that you've called and verified firsthand that I wasn't fired,
does he know that call took place? If
he does know, then how can he possibly say a correction to the web article is
not warranted, when his own editors called and confirmed that it was wrong?
-Bennett
|
Analyzed Data
|
Mr. Bennett Haselton
|
Mr. Arthur Bovino
|
Total
|
Representative
|
18
|
26
|
44
|
Directives
|
15
|
2
|
17
|
Commissives
|
0
|
5
|
5
|
Expressives
|
5
|
5
|
10
|
Declarations
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
|
76
|
Table 1
Graph 1
