anyone else ever have this problem?

I recently did a story comparing wood bats and aluminum bats, and in one graph, a referenced an article - which I called a study, much to the author's chagrin - written by college educator. I mention him, and how he defines the trampoline effect in an aluminum bat, and then I say that balls travel off an metal bat at an estiamted 20 MPH faster than wood.

Well, today, I got a long email from the gentleman, telling me I hurt his credibility, because he never mentioned 20 MPH in his article. He never did, and I never said he did, though I put the 20 MPH in the same graph I referenced him.

I led into his portion of the story by writing, "Aluminum bats are dangerous, and science says so." Again, he got mad because I implied he wrote metal bats are dangerous. Again, I never did.

I'm fretting over this because I don't like someone accusing me of twisting facts and making up numbers. I did read about the 20 MPH somewhere else, and perhaps, I should have made a better translation, disconnecting him from the 20 MPH claim.

Hope I didn't confuse anyone. It's one thing if someone disagrees, opinion-wise, with something I wrote. It's another if I'm accused of making up info, which I have never done.

Anyone ever go through something like this? And is this worth me going nuts?

 

I say just be more careful with your wording in future articles. I don't think it's something to go nuts over, rather something to take some lessons for next time. There's no mistakes, implications, or deceit in your article, methinks. Just carelessness.

 

Yeah, just be careful. Things like that can be implied someone says that if it's written odd. If you respect the guy enough, and since he's not being a jerk about it, maybe you should run a clarification stating he never said those things.

 

Similar thing happened to me in an editorial I wrote mentioning the state legislature's reasoning on an issue and later mentioning a specific representative. Earned me a nasty letter from said politician.

 

Just a question ... if you read about it 'somewhere,' shouldn't you have attributed that information to its source? That would have made clear the division between what he said and what the 20 mph meant.

 

Flash, 100 percent right. Had a done that, I would have avoided a lot of headaches...

 

Sounds like a clarification is needed.