For those who may be confused, I am not David Carr. Not the journalist who writes for the New York Times, that is. I’m having to explain this more frequently lately, since I got a slightly more prominent gig writing for Forbes.com. A public relations contact just explained to me that a newsletter circulated at her firm explained that the Times’ David Carr had moved to Forbes: “The industry is confused!”
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
The other David Carr
This confusion has come up occasionally in the past, as I write about technology and the Internet, and the other David Carr writes about media, including online media. But it’s starting to drive me a little crazy. I’m getting congratulations on articles I didn’t write, and people keep offering to meet me at places I won’t be (like the South by Southwest conference, which I would have loved to attend but didn’t for budgetary and scheduling reasons). At one point, the Forbes.com staff nearly ran my column with this other guy’s photo on it (to their credit, a copy editor caught the error before I had a chance to complain about seeing this in a preview they sent me). I used to think he was a good person to be confused with until he came out with a book talking about his deep dark past as a crack addict (although I wish I had the royalties).
If I hadn’t listened to my wife, who insisted I use my middle initial in my byline to try to distinguish myself a little more (even though I never liked having “Francis” as a middle name), the confusion might be even steeper. But the difference between “David F. Carr” and “David Carr” is pretty slim. And no, I’m not the football player, either, although that might be slightly more obvious from my status as a scrawny old man.
But it was hard to take, at a recent new media event in Miami, when I found myself being compelled to explain to someone who was staring at my name tag that I wasn’t the real David Carr, not really David Carr, just another guy who happens to be named David Carr. David F. Carr, thank you very much.