4.4 Credibility 155
4 Imagine you were an informal jury
considering the evidence contained in
the article. What would your verdict be,
and why?
5 Assess the language used by the author
Jan Ewbank. Do you consider it to be a
fair and neutral report, or judgemental,
perhaps even biased? What evidence is
there, if any, of partiality towards one side
or the other?Answers and comments are on page 324.1 Assuming it has been fairly represented
by the author, decide how credible is the
testimony given by each of the following:
• Magnolia
• Sarah Berry
• Paco
• Jon Rudenko.Base your assessments on the criteria
discussed in the chapter.
2 Identify and assess one or more pieces
of circumstantial evidence reported in the
article.
3 As a source of information, how reliable
do you consider Jan Ewbank’s article to
be in its reporting of the dispute? On
what grounds might someone question its
reliability?just don’t remember. As for
the tune, that was all mine,
and that’s what really counts.’
I next visited Professor Jon
Rudenko, who has been
called as an expert witness
in many high-profile
plagiarism wrangles. He told
me the chord sequence inSarah’s scrapbook would fit
the melody line of If You
Knew, although it would not
be impossible for the same
chords to fit two quite
different tunes. Asked to
estimate the odds against
two tunes having these
same chords by chance, hesaid: ‘Upwards of twenty to
one. Not huge. It’s quite a
common sequence in
popular music.’
The jury is out on this one,
but whatever the verdict, it’s
another unwanted smear on
Magnolia’s already tarnished
reputation.