Ten days that shocked this hack

There is an extraordinary piece of detail in the Brockes-Chomsky-Johnstone-Aaronovitch row that most commentators have missed.

First a summary. In italics, so you can skip it.

In October last year a Guardian writer, Emma Brockes, wrote a profile of Noam Chomsky. It wasn't a sympathetic piece. There were some mistakes in it. Some readers complained. So did Chomsky. The readers editor looked at the complaints, didn't like the journalism, issued corrections, asked for the article to be removed from the website and apologised.

The journalists yesterday resurrected the business, publishing their previously private letter on their blogs, doing a lot of arguing, provoking the Media Lens barmy army into retaliatory email strikes, and generally reigniting the whole row.

What's the extraordinary detail?

It is that the readers editor, Ian Mayes, picked up Chomsky's complaint when he got to his office on 7 November. Until the correction was published on 17 November he devoted his time almost exclusively to investigating Chomsky's complaint. That's ten days. Solid. On one correction.

I'm a journalist and I write for a living. I've never spent a solid week-and-a-half writing researching and writing anything. If I spend a single day working exclusively on one piece I feel I'm over-focusing. Respect.

Les