Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

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You mean celebrity rapper KRS-1, who (a long time since he was a success, and when he was trying to start a weird hip-hop religion) met Dr. Rapp, gave him "rap lessons" and planned to write a book or do a record with him (neither of which came to fruition.)

This also all happened in 1999, right before the LA Times articles in 2000. This was a KRS-1 publicity project that didn't end up working.

BTW, it's a straw man to pretend that this story being a fabrication means that the man himself was fabricated. I'm sure some retired white guy after having a stroke went to a rap open mic battle, got noticed by KRS-1 who thought he might be able to use him, which gave him the social capital to attend events regularly and make friends. I also don't doubt that once or twice during the period of his "rap lessons," KRS-1 trained him like a parrot to have a good minute on stage. Especially with the novelty, I'm sure people gave him a break, and there's no indication he wasn't trying hard, and people like when you try hard.

Those lyrics are horrific, though. Also, shit features like this remind me that if the media wasn't 24-hour Trump, it still wouldn't be covering anything important, it would just have to find 10x more stories about waterskiing dogs and rapping grandpas.

>it's a straw man to pretend that this story being a fabrication means that the man himself was fabricated

Sorry, I'm not clear on something: On what basis are you suggesting the Atlantic article is a "fabrication?"

It's a case study of the unusual effects of a stroke on the human brain published to the health section of a news website. Seems like a reasonable topic for a health story to me.

Journalists make stuff up all the time in ever more major outlets...

On what basis are you suggesting the Atlantic article is made up?

On what basis are you suggesting I suggested the Atlantic article is made up?

I suggested the more general idea that journalists make up stuff frequently (even in more important and more fact-checking outlets). So my comment was in the line of "don't rule out that possibility".

Also, don't you have it backwards? Isn't the burden of proof of those presenting a story?

The story is itself a summation of evidence - quotations from interviews, links to other news articles, detailed facts found in research, photographs, etc.

It's reasonable and healthy to question the summation or the evidence, of course, but if you are going to suggest a fabrication -- which is quite a serious charge -- it seems to me you should have some specific facts of your own in support of that. Or at least some specific impressions (e.g. "this particular quote rings false because...").

(To reply to your first question, it seemed you were suggesting fabrication given the context in which you said that journalists frequently make things up, as a reply to a comment defending the newsworthiness of the story topic rather than commenting on its accuracy. Maybe you intended to reply to the parent comment?)

The Atlantic headline is IMHO bad though -- I would agree that applying the "Rap Legend" title is questionable when it doesn't even appear that Dr. Rapp cut a commercial release. Typically in music and art, individuals that get this term applied to them tends to be pioneers, very influential artists, or artists that have some other large notability. (IMHO KRS-One could qualify for the tag, for instance.)

The story is fine and interesting, the headline just detracts from it. The headline from earlier articles (such as the 2000 LA Times article http://articles.latimes.com/2000/apr/03/local/me-15542 -- "The self-prescribed therapy of Dr. Rapp") is much better IMHO.

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