Appalllingly Ill-Informed Fodors Article on the Dordogne
 

http://www.fodors.com/news/5-great-r...ogne-6883.html

My head is spinning reading this. It's hard to imagine how anyone could get so many facts wrong in so few words. Market days incorrect, place names misspelled, incorrect info about getting tickets to Lascaux, totally false info about the young man who discovered Lascaux, complete confusion between the Dordogne and Vézère rivers...I could go on and on, but it's shameful that they would pay someone to "write" something like this and makes you wonder if ANY of the travel info they put out, on the website or in their guidebooks, has any value whatsoever.

Why not contact the editors . . .

If the author is a purported 'expert' on France/the Dordogne they probably don't know there are mistakes in the article.

I did leave a lengthy comment, but good idea to contact the "editors." I'll do that, too.

I clicked the author and she has quite a few contributions - all about France. Maybe she is a freelancer who talks a good story ;)

You are overlooking the possibility that this may be deliberate misinformation, meant to throw the tourist hordes off the track. Or perhaps they suspect plagiarism by other publisher and want to see if the misinformation is repeated elsewhere.

Well, I might click on her, too...with the aim of stealing her job from her :)

On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to read another word of hers.

Fra, I've worked in the publishing business for 35+ years, and it's not exactly part and parcel of the trade to impart deliberate misinformation. I guess plagiarism is a concern, but publishing misinformation isn't the kind of tactic a reputable publisher is likely to take to ferret it out.

I was just giving in the Le Carre treatment!

I gave up on travel publishers long ago -- besides almost never correcting errors, they accept outdated information for years and years due to "copy & paste" updates which are never checked. You would think that things would get better, but it is just the opposite since it has become so easy to copy "information" from anywhere.

Perhaps one of our experts here needs to post a lot more about the region so Fodors can lift it and put it into one of their for-revenue publications. Who knows, they might even get a free copy.

Welcome to the current state of publishing. The editors should be ashamed. Unfortunately, the cost of paying someone to get experience is no longer in the budget, and the cost of paying someone who already has plenty of experience never was in the budget. Oy vey, don't get me started.

The article would appear to be typical of modern day journalism. Pick what you can from the internet (can someone say Wikipedia) and tell everyone it's unique.

But Robert, even if you picked info from the Internet, which, yes, is unreliable, you'd be able to print better, more reliable info than this article has. How can you get the market days in Sarlat wrong, for example? It's preposterous!

And yes, I get that it's the current state of publishing, which is deplorable. And yes, the editors should be ashamed. I am thankful still to have clients who care that I care what they print.

Yikes!!! So glad we have you, StCirq. Have been reading many of your posts and enjoying them. We're heading to the Dordogne the second week of May for five nights and sure wish it were longer. Strange (maybe not, given the article) that I rely more on Fodor's Forum than on any travel book...including Rick Steves!

only 50% wrong on the Sarlat market days and the same for Lascaux tickets in May=June.

I like the Fodors articles especially if I know something about the subject. I'm amazed when there is something correct in them, I used to write up the errors but now I just love them, a bit like "1066 and all that". The recent one on wine tasting etiquette was wonderful and must have been written by a teetotaller in darkest Peru.

Yikes! Getting such basic "information" wrong, like the "Paris schoolboy " who discovered Lascaux is bad enough...how can the writer 's fact checking be so incompetent?

I notice that soon after I posted this and wrote to the editors, the article disappeared from this page. Heh.

Don't bite the hand that feeds! You could have phrased your disgust with Fodor's editors in a much better way than the scathing way you did.

Not that your points, if valid, are not valid.

I mean to malign the whole Fodor's enterprise for one article - throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

Anyway your comments left a bad taste in my month, accurate or not. Be kinder, gentler to make the same points.

Cheers

<i><font color=#555555>"Don't bite the hand that feeds!"</font></i>

Excuse me, but who's feeding whom here? Random House DOES NOT pay its longtime/experienced travel writers on this board. IMO, it's the contributors who are doing the feeding here.

<i><font color=#555555>"your comments left a bad taste in my month, accurate or not"</font></i>

Your mouth taste might matter if you were someone's boss in this matter. Since you are not…

<i><font color=#555555>"Be kinder, gentler to make the same points."</font></i>

Bringing mistakes to someone's attention in a "kinder, gentler" manner certainly has its place, especially if you are an employee with a boss. However, mistakes of this magnitude in the presence of veteran traveler contributors who know more, suggest a shocking tolerance from the powers-that-be for the quick, cheap, and inept. I think a little verbal outrage is appropriate here, and there's nothing quite like a slap from someone smarter to make someone not-as-smart think twice. Loyal researchers and committed contributors deserve more respect.