File under “Fact Checking is Good.” I sent this email to The Economist after noticing a strange discrepancy between a video on their site and reality…

Dear The Economist,

After watching the “Did you know” motion graphic on the Media Convergence site (http://mediaconvergence.economist.com), I decided on a whim to look up more information on “Brady James” who is credited during the clip as holding the record for most text messages sent in a month. I was surprised to find that the only reference to Brady is in the Wikipedia article on text messaging. Seeing a citation link to a newspaper article I followed it only to find that the referenced article actually states that one Nick Andes is the actual record holder along with his friend Doug Clinger and that they live in Lancaster, PA, not Los Angeles, CA. Furthermore, the Lancasteronline.com article states the total number of messages they sent is 217,012 and not 217,541 as indicated in the clip. As far as I can tell, there is NO reference anywhere else online even to the existence of Brady James while there are numerous articles referencing Nick and Doug. Not sure if anyone else pointed this out, just wanted to let you know!

Links to referenced articles:

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/236593

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/22/texting-record-attempt-re_n_190307.html

Jonathan Assink

Filed under: life by Jonathan