True But Misleading

If you ever wanted proof that a newspaper article can be mostly true, yet very misleading, you only need to visit this Daily Mail site. The article is about Latitude‘s old friend Liz Clark of the Santa Barbara-based Cal 40 Swell, whom we knew and wrote about before she took off on her cruise 10 years ago. You’ve read about Liz in Latitude 38 many times, and she’s contributed articles to Latitude many times also.

The title of the Daily Mail article is "Sailor wanted! Bartender spends 10 years sailing around the world after a generous benefactor gave her a yacht (and now she’s looking for a travel partner)" and it immediately gives an entirely false impression of Liz and her life. First of all, while Liz tended bar at the Endless Summer in Santa Barbara years ago, being a ‘bartender’ is not now and never was her career. Second, the word ‘yacht’ would probably be taken the wrong way by most Daily Mail readers. Swell is a well-used and anything-but-luxurious vessel. Third, when it says "Sailor Wanted" and "now she’s looking for a travel partner," it almost seems as if Liz is desperate for companionship. This is baloney. Liz is cute, fit as a fiddle, adventurous, and relatively young, and thus gets hit on about as often as a baseball. We’re sure she’d like to have a partner, like 99% of humans, including our daughter the Devilette, who is also in her mid-thirties but still single. But singles are particular these days. Fourth, it’s inaccurate to say that Liz has been "sailing around the world," as she’s sailed Mexico, Central America, French Polynesia and Micronesia. No knock on Liz, but that’s not even "around" the Pacific let alone around the world.

We’re also going to accuse the Daily Mail of misrepresentation by omission. For nowhere did they mention the depth of Liz’s commitment to eat well and responsibly, and treat the environment with love and respect. Liz is not a bartender, but a person who is attempting to show, by living through example, a different way to live.

If we didn’t know better, we’d think the Daily Mail only ran the feature as an excuse to run a large number of photos of Liz, often in a little bikini. One can only imagine the drooling that the photos induced in Old Blighty.