New book: How to win an information war

[ppppenguin]

I've been reading a newly published book: "How to win an information war" by Peter Pomerantsev. I think it's also been serialised on Radio 4. It draws heavily on the work that Sefton Delmer did in WW2 and wrote about in "Trail Sinister" and "Black Boomerang". I have both these books which are written in a compelling, almost tabloid journalism, style. Delmer was, after all, a tabloid journalist and by all accounts a good one.

https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Peter-Pom...i/29636735
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pomerantsev

A common problem with arts graduates is the almost wilful ignorance of technical matters.

p155: "... an unusual apparatus resembling a closet-sized early fax machine, with a telephone connected to transistors and a ticker tape...."

The Hellschreiber was hardly "closet-sized" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellschrei...y-park.jpg The phrase: "....with a telephone connected to transistors and a ticker tape..." doesn't make any sense at all.

He uses the word "transistor" earlier in the book where he refers to people listening on their: "...short wave transistors...." during WW2. Almost 10 years before the first transistor radio. Allowing the once commonplace but now old-fashioned usage of "transistor" to mean a "transistor radio" this is sloppy writing.

He may be a good journalist and historian but if he makes simple errors like this, are we to trust the accuracy of the rest of his work?

[Mike Watterson]

It's abysmal writing to use slang, and worse to use obsolete slang.
And early fax machines were Victorian. At least he got the idea that Hellscriber used a narrow tape rather than a page wide roll.

A common problem with arts graduates is the almost wilful ignorance of technical matters.

There was little excuse 1890s to 1990s with libraries being available. Writers often wrote in longhand in a library. My German teacher expected us to use the library for the essay on anything to do with Germany (fortunately written in English) back in 1974.

Since at least 1996 there has been plenty to find on the Internet. Altavista was pretty good search by 2002. So zero excuse for last 25 years. Even Humanities/Arts undergraduates are expected to research but not plagiarise.

[BusyBee]

I find such errors very offputting but I suppose journalists work to very tight deadlines so maybe much of the research gets scrimped on?

Often I have found that non technical people are afraid to get their feet wet and do tend to avoid such things. That will only get worse as things get ever more sophisticated and the enthusiast is locked out by lack of information and stricter regualtion, whether for good or bad.

Tracy

[ppppenguin]

This is a book, not a journal ice for next day or next week. It's obvious from the copious citations that he's done a lot of research. It's not obvious from the acknowledgements that he had an editor, as is common with many books. A good editor should question these things. But since the majority of editors are arts graduates I doubt they would have picked up these problems either.

[DrStrangelove]

I listened to the reading on R4: the transistor thing tickled me no end.

Another book in the same vein is "The Black Game" by Ellic Howe.

[ppppenguin]

I have Ellic Howe's book too. He was the master forger and printer who Delmer called Armin Hull in Black Boomerang.