Al Franken on Lexis

I love this book! From page 15 of Al Franken's new book Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them); A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right":

How to Lie with Footnotes #5: Overload a LexisNexis Search

For those of you unfamiliar with LexisNexis, it is a state-of-the-art research tool/journalistic crutch. Like any powerful instrument, LexisNexis searches can be manipulated to produce misleading results. It's like a chainsaw, which can be used productively (say, as a prop in a movie like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), but can also be used for evil (such as in an actual chainsaw massacre). Throughout this book, I use LexisNexis productively. in Slander, [Anne] Coulter uses it to dismember the truth. Introducing ... the Overloaded LexisNexis Search.

On page 8 of Slander, Coulter refers to a controversial 1994 Christmas Day speech given by Jesse Jackson on British TV, "The New York Times did not report the speech," she complains. Checking the endnote reveals her methodology. "LexisNexis search of New York Times archives from December 1994 through January 1995 for 'Jesse Jackson and Germany and fascism and South Africa' produces no documents." Well, yeah.

A more reasonable search (Jesse Jackson and Christmas and Britain) shows that, yes, of course, the Times did run an article on December 30 about the controversy using excerpts of Jackson's speech, which was pre-recorded.

Using Coulter's technique, I can prove than no newspaper has ever covered anything. For example, I can prove the Washington Times did not cover the incident in which George H. W. Bush threw up on the Japanese prime minister. A LexisNexis search from January 1992 for "Bush and Japan and prime minister and lab and cookies and tossed" produces no documents.

Posted by joebeone at Enero 13, 2004 11:58 AM