7 ms·

I wrote a story that became a legend, then discovered it wasn’t true

172 points by danso 8y ago

reaperducer 8y ago
I had drawn on the contemporaneous newspaper accounts in Val d’Aosta and Chamonix for my story. This is a good example of why re-writing another person's stories is not journalism. I've been saying that for over 25 years in newsrooms across the country. Eventually, your laziness bites you.
- jsnell 8y ago
  But he did actually do the boots on the ground research, not just copy other stories: > I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring them to talk to me. > I went to the tunnel control center, and to the local ‘Carabinieri’ post, where I spoke to managers and cops who must have known that the accounts published in 1999 were exaggerated. But all the witnesses and officials were under gag orders, and records – including security video and recordings of radio traffic – were sealed due to ongoing criminal and civil investigations. > As I write this, I’ve spent the last week going back over 76 pages of handwritten notes I made on that trip.
  - dahfizz 8y ago
    >But he did actually do the boots on the ground research, not just copy other stories: He tried to. And when that didn't turn up anything, he decided to go on ahead anyway with no evidence of his own.
  - Joe-Z 8y ago
    I think the parts you‘re quoting are referring to his actions after he was asked to do a 20th anniversary write-up not for the original story.
    - danso 8y ago
      No, this is referring to his original 2003 trip: > Four years later, in 2003, I was living in France. And my curiosity finally got the better of me. I traveled to Val d’Aosta on my own dime to write a story that I eventually came to call “Searching for Spadino. > I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring them to talk to me. Through them, I felt I got to know a subject who was so self-effacing that his closest friends could barely even find a snapshot of him.
      - Joe-Z 8y ago
        Right, I got that mixed up. Thanks!
  - dkarl 8y ago
    He found no evidence contradicting the story, but none supporting it, either. There's a big risk in equating the effort expended with the quality of the final product, a lesson that applies as much in software as in journalism. I'm very frustrated with the author for not crediting the New York Times. I don't think it's a coincidence that the story fell apart when he was commissioned to do a piece for an outfit with journalistic standards. It's possible the NYT's name opened some doors for him, too, but he doesn't describe experiencing any frustration or serious misgivings in his original investigation. He just says "in hindsight" and "I suppose a part of me always worried" but that's fifteen years too late. Clearly he approached it more critically this time, but he leaves the reason for that completely unexamined. EDIT: Also, "He was just a quiet man who had tried to do the right thing in the face of an inferno. And maybe that is enough," clearly thinking about himself, clearly not taking responsibility.
    - simen 8y ago
      Dude, he wrote a detailed postmortem of his own mistakes. That is taking responsibility. You're projecting, for whatever reason. The sentence about the quiet man is clearly referencing the original hero of his story, who might not have saved 10 people but did try to save another man's life while risking his own.
  - DoctorOetker 8y ago
    > ... all the witnesses and officials were under gag orders, and records – including security video and recordings of radio traffic – were sealed due to ongoing criminal and civil investigations. So it seems one of the lessons for journalists is: when you encounter witnesses that behave as if under gag orders, there is a real story underneath, and you must catalogue it as a story to return to repeatedly to pressure the unsealing or reinvestigate after unsealing... I also think it's quite perverse that witnesses are under gag orders...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tungwaiyip 8y ago
At least Mark Gardiner has the integrity to reflect on his mistake.
DoctorOetker 8y ago
that page looks empty with uBlock origin...
- roywiggins 8y ago
  Everything has "visibility: hidden !important;" set on it, for some reason, and it's only unhidden when Javascript runs.
  - tomatotomato37 8y ago
    I think its some weird wordpress script for emojis (wp-emoji-release.min.js), since I'm finding articles on taking it out of your own sites that mention render-blocking
- heavenlyblue 8y ago
  I run uBlock Origin and it works.
- OrgNet 8y ago
  I have uBlock Origin and uMatrix and it works somewhat fine... you just have to scroll down a blank page or two...
- brabel 8y ago
  I just had to reload the page once to be able to see anything.
lifeisstillgood 8y ago
I am not sure I get this - from my reading Spadino drove into a burning tunnel, drags another man into a refuge, calls the command to tell them where they are but both die. Sounds more heroic than anything I am planning on. Why beat up on the guy because reporters at the time and afterwards got their facts wrong. It's not the motorcyclists fault the reporter was wrong but the sentence in the article where the reporter describes discovering his own mistake something like "married to him for years and now felt cheated on" sounds ... awful.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  > Sounds more heroic than anything I am planning on. I'm not sure he planned on it, either. I think sometimes people do things because, when they find themselves in the situation, they can't not do it. (But I'm still alive, so what do I know?)
  - JohnBooty 8y ago
    In my extremely limited experience, which was at least an order of magnitude much much much less dangerous and spectacular, yeah I just kind of did the thing. There was no conscious choice involved there. What's funny is once you're doing the thing it's not so automatic. You are making conscious decisions at that point. Except your brain feels like a supercomputer because of adrenaline or whatever else is flooding the system. In hindsight of course I know I was probably flopping around like an overweight fish out of water hahaha
- njharman 8y ago
  > Why beat up on the guy because reporters at the time and afterwards got their facts wrong. Were is anyone beating up on the guy? You are imagining things that aren't there.
mindcrime 8y ago
He was just a quiet man who had tried to do the right thing in the face of an inferno. And maybe that is enough. Speaking as a former firefighter, I would say "Yes. Yes, that is enough." As far as I'm concerned, anybody who runs towards a fire in an attempt to help others, when everyone else is running away, is a hero. Doesn't matter if you're "officially" a firefighter, or anything else. If you display the behavior, the willingness to sacrifice, the bravery, of a firefighter, then you are one of the brotherhood. And if you pay the ultimate sacrifice in the process, you are a hero to be cherished, whether you saved 10 people, or none. And before anybody says it... yes, I know the old saw about "not becoming another casualty, and one more person to be rescued" as well as anyone. I used to teach that stuff. But at the end of the day, while we might not want civilians or untrained/unequipped people running into fires, you still have to respect and honor the courage of the people who are willing to do that.
- paulddraper 8y ago
  The article does point out that "Nothing in the official record suggests his motivation." But agreed on all points.
- roel_v 8y ago
  That's not what this story is about though (admittedly IM sometime not so HO). It's about how seemingly small mistakes end up shaping an entirely made version of history, even at a time when clickbait listicles and Russian troll farms didn't control public discourse yet. If some immaterial detail like this was so grossly wrong, what else is wrong? Is there no way to trust anything we read? What is the value of decades of archives of websites and newspapers when nobody has any incentive to correct or maintain any of it? Is it time to start building a 'web of trust' for information 'chunks', as the original PGP set out to do in the 90's for people? Should we just acknowledge that we've lost the battle on 'finding the Truth'? Those are more material questions that whether or not this one guy saved 0 or 10 people 20 years ago, and whether that warrants a motorcycle tribute ride to be named after him.
  - mindcrime 8y ago
    That's not what this story is about though (admittedly IM sometime not so HO). I would agree that that's not all the story is about. It just happens the be the part that touched a nerve for me. Otherwise, I don't disagree with you. I think there are a lot of open questions about understanding the nature of "truth" on the web these days. Is it time to start building a 'web of trust' for information 'chunks', as the original PGP set out to do in the 90's for people? Good question. Skeptics will say that this approach has been proven to not work. I might counter that we just haven't figured out how to get the details right yet.
amacbride 8y ago
They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires of abandoned vehicles. This may be the most evocative sentence I've read this year.
- zaphirplane 8y ago
  It needs a comma badly I read it wrong in the article and then in this comment incandescent margarine ,{{ ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires }} of abandoned vehicles
  - weatherlight 8y ago
    It needs a comma, badly. I read it wrong in the article and then in this comment. > Me too!
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Huh? The agent: "river of incandescent margarine". What it did: "ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires" What it did it to: "abandoned vehicles" I do find "incandescent" hard to imagine. Because it's just fat, and it'll carbonize before becoming incandescent. Maybe "flaming margarine" or something. Also, "listened" indicated that they heard, but didn't see. It doesn't really need punctuation. But maybe this would be clearer: They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited the fuel tanks, and burst the tires, of abandoned vehicles. Or maybe: They listened as a river of incandescent margarine engulfed abandoned vehicles, igniting fuel tanks and bursting tires.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Belated edit: Maybe "river of incandescent margarine vapor". But it wouldn't really be margarine anymore. Without enough oxygen to fully burn, it'd be mostly a mixture of carbon particles, H2O, H2, CO and CO2. Like a candle flame.
  - atombender 8y ago
    No comma needed. The margarine ignited the fuel tanks. Your interpretation isn't what the author intended.
Deimorz 8y ago
The same author wrote an article about the tunnel fire in the New York Times yesterday that talks more about the overall story: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/mont-blanc-tunnel-fire-anniversary-rescue.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/mont-blanc-tunne...
grkvlt 8y ago
Because the truck carried flour and margarine, I was hoping the legend was going to be something about the fire started by the crash making a multi-ton sponge cake in the tunnel... Never mind...

172 points by danso 8y ago

I had drawn on the contemporaneous newspaper accounts in Val d’Aosta and Chamonix for my story. This is a good example of why re-writing another person's stories is not journalism. I've been saying that for over 25 years in newsrooms across the country. Eventually, your laziness bites you.

jsnell 8y ago
But he did actually do the boots on the ground research, not just copy other stories: > I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring them to talk to me. > I went to the tunnel control center, and to the local ‘Carabinieri’ post, where I spoke to managers and cops who must have known that the accounts published in 1999 were exaggerated. But all the witnesses and officials were under gag orders, and records – including security video and recordings of radio traffic – were sealed due to ongoing criminal and civil investigations. > As I write this, I’ve spent the last week going back over 76 pages of handwritten notes I made on that trip.
- dahfizz 8y ago
  >But he did actually do the boots on the ground research, not just copy other stories: He tried to. And when that didn't turn up anything, he decided to go on ahead anyway with no evidence of his own.
- Joe-Z 8y ago
  I think the parts you‘re quoting are referring to his actions after he was asked to do a 20th anniversary write-up not for the original story.
  - danso 8y ago
    No, this is referring to his original 2003 trip: > Four years later, in 2003, I was living in France. And my curiosity finally got the better of me. I traveled to Val d’Aosta on my own dime to write a story that I eventually came to call “Searching for Spadino. > I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring them to talk to me. Through them, I felt I got to know a subject who was so self-effacing that his closest friends could barely even find a snapshot of him.
    - Joe-Z 8y ago
      Right, I got that mixed up. Thanks!
- dkarl 8y ago
  He found no evidence contradicting the story, but none supporting it, either. There's a big risk in equating the effort expended with the quality of the final product, a lesson that applies as much in software as in journalism. I'm very frustrated with the author for not crediting the New York Times. I don't think it's a coincidence that the story fell apart when he was commissioned to do a piece for an outfit with journalistic standards. It's possible the NYT's name opened some doors for him, too, but he doesn't describe experiencing any frustration or serious misgivings in his original investigation. He just says "in hindsight" and "I suppose a part of me always worried" but that's fifteen years too late. Clearly he approached it more critically this time, but he leaves the reason for that completely unexamined. EDIT: Also, "He was just a quiet man who had tried to do the right thing in the face of an inferno. And maybe that is enough," clearly thinking about himself, clearly not taking responsibility.
  - simen 8y ago
    Dude, he wrote a detailed postmortem of his own mistakes. That is taking responsibility. You're projecting, for whatever reason. The sentence about the quiet man is clearly referencing the original hero of his story, who might not have saved 10 people but did try to save another man's life while risking his own.
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  > ... all the witnesses and officials were under gag orders, and records – including security video and recordings of radio traffic – were sealed due to ongoing criminal and civil investigations. So it seems one of the lessons for journalists is: when you encounter witnesses that behave as if under gag orders, there is a real story underneath, and you must catalogue it as a story to return to repeatedly to pressure the unsealing or reinvestigate after unsealing... I also think it's quite perverse that witnesses are under gag orders...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

tungwaiyip 8y ago

At least Mark Gardiner has the integrity to reflect on his mistake.

DoctorOetker 8y ago

that page looks empty with uBlock origin...

roywiggins 8y ago
Everything has "visibility: hidden !important;" set on it, for some reason, and it's only unhidden when Javascript runs.
- tomatotomato37 8y ago
  I think its some weird wordpress script for emojis (wp-emoji-release.min.js), since I'm finding articles on taking it out of your own sites that mention render-blocking
heavenlyblue 8y ago
I run uBlock Origin and it works.
OrgNet 8y ago
I have uBlock Origin and uMatrix and it works somewhat fine... you just have to scroll down a blank page or two...
brabel 8y ago
I just had to reload the page once to be able to see anything.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

I am not sure I get this - from my reading Spadino drove into a burning tunnel, drags another man into a refuge, calls the command to tell them where they are but both die. Sounds more heroic than anything I am planning on. Why beat up on the guy because reporters at the time and afterwards got their facts wrong. It's not the motorcyclists fault the reporter was wrong but the sentence in the article where the reporter describes discovering his own mistake something like "married to him for years and now felt cheated on" sounds ... awful.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
> Sounds more heroic than anything I am planning on. I'm not sure he planned on it, either. I think sometimes people do things because, when they find themselves in the situation, they can't not do it. (But I'm still alive, so what do I know?)
- JohnBooty 8y ago
  In my extremely limited experience, which was at least an order of magnitude much much much less dangerous and spectacular, yeah I just kind of did the thing. There was no conscious choice involved there. What's funny is once you're doing the thing it's not so automatic. You are making conscious decisions at that point. Except your brain feels like a supercomputer because of adrenaline or whatever else is flooding the system. In hindsight of course I know I was probably flopping around like an overweight fish out of water hahaha
njharman 8y ago
> Why beat up on the guy because reporters at the time and afterwards got their facts wrong. Were is anyone beating up on the guy? You are imagining things that aren't there.

mindcrime 8y ago

He was just a quiet man who had tried to do the right thing in the face of an inferno. And maybe that is enough. Speaking as a former firefighter, I would say "Yes. Yes, that is enough." As far as I'm concerned, anybody who runs towards a fire in an attempt to help others, when everyone else is running away, is a hero. Doesn't matter if you're "officially" a firefighter, or anything else. If you display the behavior, the willingness to sacrifice, the bravery, of a firefighter, then you are one of the brotherhood. And if you pay the ultimate sacrifice in the process, you are a hero to be cherished, whether you saved 10 people, or none. And before anybody says it... yes, I know the old saw about "not becoming another casualty, and one more person to be rescued" as well as anyone. I used to teach that stuff. But at the end of the day, while we might not want civilians or untrained/unequipped people running into fires, you still have to respect and honor the courage of the people who are willing to do that.

paulddraper 8y ago
The article does point out that "Nothing in the official record suggests his motivation." But agreed on all points.
roel_v 8y ago
That's not what this story is about though (admittedly IM sometime not so HO). It's about how seemingly small mistakes end up shaping an entirely made version of history, even at a time when clickbait listicles and Russian troll farms didn't control public discourse yet. If some immaterial detail like this was so grossly wrong, what else is wrong? Is there no way to trust anything we read? What is the value of decades of archives of websites and newspapers when nobody has any incentive to correct or maintain any of it? Is it time to start building a 'web of trust' for information 'chunks', as the original PGP set out to do in the 90's for people? Should we just acknowledge that we've lost the battle on 'finding the Truth'? Those are more material questions that whether or not this one guy saved 0 or 10 people 20 years ago, and whether that warrants a motorcycle tribute ride to be named after him.
- mindcrime 8y ago
  That's not what this story is about though (admittedly IM sometime not so HO). I would agree that that's not all the story is about. It just happens the be the part that touched a nerve for me. Otherwise, I don't disagree with you. I think there are a lot of open questions about understanding the nature of "truth" on the web these days. Is it time to start building a 'web of trust' for information 'chunks', as the original PGP set out to do in the 90's for people? Good question. Skeptics will say that this approach has been proven to not work. I might counter that we just haven't figured out how to get the details right yet.

amacbride 8y ago

They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires of abandoned vehicles. This may be the most evocative sentence I've read this year.

zaphirplane 8y ago
It needs a comma badly I read it wrong in the article and then in this comment incandescent margarine ,{{ ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires }} of abandoned vehicles
- weatherlight 8y ago
  It needs a comma, badly. I read it wrong in the article and then in this comment. > Me too!
- mirimir 8y ago
  Huh? The agent: "river of incandescent margarine". What it did: "ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires" What it did it to: "abandoned vehicles" I do find "incandescent" hard to imagine. Because it's just fat, and it'll carbonize before becoming incandescent. Maybe "flaming margarine" or something. Also, "listened" indicated that they heard, but didn't see. It doesn't really need punctuation. But maybe this would be clearer: They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited the fuel tanks, and burst the tires, of abandoned vehicles. Or maybe: They listened as a river of incandescent margarine engulfed abandoned vehicles, igniting fuel tanks and bursting tires.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Belated edit: Maybe "river of incandescent margarine vapor". But it wouldn't really be margarine anymore. Without enough oxygen to fully burn, it'd be mostly a mixture of carbon particles, H2O, H2, CO and CO2. Like a candle flame.
- atombender 8y ago
  No comma needed. The margarine ignited the fuel tanks. Your interpretation isn't what the author intended.

Deimorz 8y ago

The same author wrote an article about the tunnel fire in the New York Times yesterday that talks more about the overall story: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/mont-blanc-tunnel-fire-anniversary-rescue.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/mont-blanc-tunne...

grkvlt 8y ago

Because the truck carried flour and margarine, I was hoping the legend was going to be something about the fire started by the crash making a multi-ton sponge cake in the tunnel... Never mind...