Has Moderna Språk lost credibility?

May 30, 2011
Has Moderna Sprak lost
credibility?
When does a writer, an editor or a publication lose credibility? We
do not lose our credibility if we make a few errors or arrive at
some wrong assumptions. As humans, we are all liable to make
mistakes.
But we lose our credibility when we stick to our errors and false
assumptions after being told about them. Credible publications issue
apologies once they are proved wrong.
When I was one of Reuters' bureau chiefs and a staff writer for the
Associated Press, we used to reissue a report if a reader notified us that
we had misspelled a name.
Respectable publications find it a point of strength to issue a response, a
correction or an apology. Failure to do so damages a publication's
credibility.
And without credibility, a publication is finished.
It seems that Moderna Sprak pays lip service to credibility, though its
editors claim it to be a scholarly journal.
In an article in its latest issue, it lambasted my book Where Swedes Get it
Wrong When Writing English and alleged that "the author ... is not a
grammarian."
How did the journal and its editors know that I was not a grammarian?
What are they supposed to do if they find out they are wrong?
What will Moderna Sprak, its editors and the writer of the article,
Professor Arne Olofsson, say if a prime academic journal published in the
U.S. proves them wrong?
Here is what American Communication Journal, the official peer-reviewed
publication of the American Communication Association, says of my new
book News from the BBC, CNN and al-Jazeera, published by U.S.'s
Hampton Press (emphasis added):
Recommending it as a textbook, ACJ heaps praise on the book. It sees it
as "a good source text for practitioners and scholars. Practitioners (i.e.,

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reporters, editors, documentarians, and news media executives) can
benefit from reading about the linguistic techniques necessary to
capture a target audience and make a station or network more profitable.

"Scholars (i.e., graduate students and professors in mass communication
and journalism programs) could benefit from learning how to incorporate
Barkho's form of triangulation into CDA." For more information, please go
to: http://www.ac-journal.org/?page_id=13

The allegation that "the author ... is not a grammarian" is one of many
false assumptions the journal makes in its article.
Nonetheless, it has obstinately refused to even issue an erratum.
This is not how credible and grown-up publications and editors work.
Leon Barkho

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