{"id":725,"date":"2018-08-07T19:54:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T19:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garrowayatlarge.com\/?p=725"},"modified":"2018-08-07T19:59:36","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T19:59:36","slug":"the-questionable-narrator-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garrowayatlarge.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/07\/the-questionable-narrator-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"The questionable narrator, part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week<\/a> I talked a bit about unreliable narrators, the importance of verifying information, and the process a historian must go through to make sure what’s written is as accurate as possible. This week, let’s take a look at this in action with a couple of examples, one that’s kind of related to Garroway and one that isn’t. We’ll handle the non-Garroway example first as a warm-up to how these kinds of myths begin.<\/p>\n

Ask anybody about women in 1950s television and the name Betty Furness<\/a> comes up past a certain point.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Betty became a presence as a spokesperson for Westinghouse, famously demonstrating new appliances and opening refrigerator doors and so forth on live television. That mention of “refrigerator door” will inevitably get people talking about the night Betty Furness couldn’t get the refrigerator door to open and what a fiasco that was. And it’s a great story…except that Betty Furness wasn’t in town that night, and another lady (June Graham) was filling in for her:<\/p>\n