Curbside Classic has just reposted a story from originally back in April of 2013 that helped to nudge me into launching Indie Auto. The article started off as a photo essay about the Studebaker Sceptre, but Paul Niedermeyer (2023) tacked on a missive by Rob Moore, who he described as a “Studebaker historian.”
My bullshit detector went off when reading Moore’s first sentence . . . and kept on beeping throughout his mini essay. Today if I read something like that I would suspect that it was produced by artificial intelligence. But back then I scratched my head and wondered: Where did he get his facts from? It read like Moore had taken a standard Studebaker history and thrown it into a blender.
Also see ‘Accounts of Brooks Stevens’s Studebaker Sceptre and siblings can vary’
This led me to write the essay, “Does the Internet dumb down auto history?” Moore was among the writers I criticized, but I was hesitant to be too hard on him. I didn’t want to sound like too much of a nitpicker on the smaller facts he clearly got wrong and wondered whether some of his questionable points were based on newer information than what I had access to.
I still think that the latter may be possible, but Moore loses credibility with me because of his obvious errors. It looks like sloppy writing, perhaps mixed with some cognitive issues (I don’t say that to be unkind).
Yeah, but who cares about accuracy anymore?
Moore’s missive raised a meta question for me: Should we care about accuracy in auto history posted on the Internet? Or should we view stories like this as purely entertainment? Heck, don’t people read this stuff mostly for the pictures?
My reaction back in 2013 was that facts do matter — at least if one is going to be called a historian. Indeed, I started to include a scholarly form of citation in my articles partly in response to Moore’s freeform storytelling. It’s all too easy to misremember something, so I wanted to get into the habit of double checking my facts — and give the reader an opportunity to verify that I got them right.
This led me to another rule: If I couldn’t document a piece of information, I would leave it out of a story. That may help explain why my historical analysis may not be as sweeping as that of some other writers.
In the conclusion of my above-mentioned essay, I worried about what the field of automotive history would look like in a decade or two. “Will professional writers and editors be eclipsed by volunteers? Will accuracy and insight take a back seat to nostalgic car porn? I hope not, but the underlying political economy of the Internet seems to be pushing in that direction.”
It’s been 10 years since I wrote those words, so how are we doing? The good news is that smaller-scale websites such as Curbside Classic have survived despite the many challenges of this business. That is an extraordinary achievement.
The bad news is that Rob Moore’s missive is being reposted without even the most obvious corrections. I guess the future is here.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Niedermeyer, Paul; 2023. “Concept Classic: Studebaker Sceptre — The Thunderbird From South Bend.” Curbside Classic. Reposted Oct. 16.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
- Milwaukee Art Museum Brooks Stevens Archive
Be the first to comment