I’m always happy to integrate requested changes into my articles. I can easily accept that other scholars are more knowledgeable or more attentive than I am. What I can’t accept is the extreme naivete of some people.
The novelist I’m analyzing in one of my articles mentioned in an interview that several of the journalists who spoke to him about his novel confessed that the main character sounded so real that they Googled her to see if she was an actual person.
“That can’t be right,” both my reviewers wrote. “Googling is a very primitive way of conducting research. Surely, journalists prepare for interviews in a more responsible way.”
I don’t know how to break it to these idealistic scholars that even Googling something is too onerous for most journalists. We have to be grateful if they try to find out anything at all about their subject.
Clarissa's Blog 
You know, most people barely know how to use Boolean search operators.
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I have a newspaper reporter and a newspaper editor among my in-laws. They can be charming company but insight, skepticism, curiosity? If they didn’t Google something, it wouldn’t be laziness, it would be that it didn’t occur to them that there might be more to know. They take everything at face value.
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That’s exactly what I’m saying. I wish more people realized this.
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I hate to defend journalistic practices, but assuming we’re talking about a recent novel, googling might not be the worst way to answer that particular question. It usually takes a little time before the traditional scholarship is available.
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Man, I seriously adore you for this comment. This is precisely what I’m going to say in response to the reviewers’ comment. THANK YOU!
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Always glad to help. I teach a course in which students write papers about fairly recent novels and it’s often tricky for them to come up with sources other than author interviews and book reviews.
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