|
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
"Full of spelling mistakes, out-of-date information etc.", 14 Feb 2002
By A Customer
The title and high price of Who's Who in British Radio 2002 might lead would-be purchasers to believe it is a professionally-produced radio industry reference book. Unfortunately, it is not.The title is misleading. Rather than a directory of current employees in the British radio industry, many entrants have not enhanced the UK airwaves since the 1960s. The authors have also, embarrassingly, failed to notice that several of their inductees are, sadly, deceased. The Who's Who project began as a vanity publication, with appeals to radio personnel from Dawn Rusling, to write their own entries. It was not accepted, however, that those who failed to respond perhaps did not wish to be included. The authors attempted to make up the shortfall by compiling missing entries, but did so without the benefit of proper research. The result is a mish-mash of lengthy items of self-promotion and many short, dismissive paragraphs, indicating that the editors knew so little about the person concerned, that it would have been better to have omitted the entry altogether. The odd mistake can be forgiven, but can a publication be taken seriously when it contains three inaccurate entries in a row on page one? Later, there's an instance of one person achieving THREE entries as if he were three different individuals. Quotes about the book from radio industry personnel: "Full of spelling mistakes, out-of-date information etc." "It caused some hilarity at work, with colleagues' careers written off in one inaccurate sentence." "I am called by the wrong name in one of the paragraphs."... The concept of producing a radio reference book is good, but such a major project cannot be rushed or done on the cheap. It requires painstaking research, a great deal of time and above all, professional proof-reading.
|