Decline in the Wall Street Journal Long Form Journalism

On Thursday, 4/17, by Alexis Madrigal



This chart speaks for itself. It shows the number of stories the Wall Street Journal published that were over 2,500 words from 2002 to 2011.   Recall that I said that the WSJ did not win a pulitzer price in journalism for a few years, and this year won awards for commentary and criticism.  Looking back at the Pulitzer Price for Investigative Journalism, WSJ won in 2004 and 2006 (and you can see in in the chart, that WSJ had many long form journalism until about 2007.

Dean Starkman of Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) created the chart and referenced it again today. (He used to work at the publication.) The Journal is not alone in this trend at the big papers, as CJR has also shown, but its numbers are the most startling.

Starkman points out that, Journalism prizes have no value for the public—zero—in and of themselves. Prizes do, however, offer bureaucratic and career incentives to the big, time-consuming, expensive, risky, agenda-setting work—especially investigations—that news organizations could very easily skip, and often do. The Pulitzers, being the most prestigious prize, by definition provide the greatest incentive.  

According to Starkman, the WSJ has been shut out of the Pulitzers, this being now the sixth year running. What’s more, they weren’t among the finalists. That means none of the entries got beyond the juries, which are drawn from news organizations around the country, and didn’t even make it to the board. In fact, the last time it actually won one on the news side was in 2007, which, not coincidentally, was the year Murdoch made his bid for the paper.
When Starkman first published the chart, WSJ responded:

The number of words in an article has never been the barometer by which the quality of a publication or its value to readers should be measured. Every article is reported with unique facts and anecdotes that are needed to best tell the story. We consider those factors, while respecting our readers' busy lives, when determining the length of an article. Our very strong circulation numbers suggest that readers think we're doing a good job.

All that said, if the editors thought there were 200 stories worth running at that length in 2002, it stands to reason that many of the 2011 stories were not better shorter. At least some longer, deeper, and more complex stories are either being shortened or left out entirely.

And what's most surprising to me [Alexis Madrigal] as a journalist who was working through the period of the Journal's greatest decline is that longform has always worked for the publications for which I've written. At both Wired and The Atlantic, our most successful stories in terms of impact or audience size have almost always been the deep, definitive ones that get shared all over the Internet.

Starkman suggests that Rupert Murdoch simply wanted to reduce the number of long stories.

Read more, including the Starkman article.  What do you think?

6 False Things You Heard About the Boston Bombing

Given our conversation today about all the false rumors spread about the Boston Marathon, here's rundown from Mother Jones of 6 false things mentioned in the new about the bombing.  Granted, there's still a lot we don't know about Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon's finish line, but one thing we do know is that many of the initial reports on media outlets on Monday and early Tuesday have been proven false.  It's expected during a breaking news event, but even some law enforcement officials did more to confuse than clarify.  One day later, follow some of the story lines that fizzled upon further scrutiny.

1. Cellphone service shut down in Boston
2. Explosions kill 12 people
3. Bombing at JFK Library
4. Saudi national in custody
5. Five additional incendiary devices found
6. Police have security footage of a "possible suspect"

Did you hear of any other rumors that fizzled?  Did you believe it when you heard it?  Tim O? :)

Supreme Court will decide if your genes can be patented

On Monday, the justices will grapple with a big, seemingly straightforward question: Can a company patent a human gene? Two genes: BRCA1 and BRCA2 are linked to women who are at higher risk for breast cancer. In the mid 1990s, the geneticist who won the race to find the precise locations of the genes (on chromosomes 17 and 13), and isolate them, founded Myriad Genetics and took out 20-year patents on the genes themselves. Myriad then developed the test women take to discover whether they are BRCA carriers.

The problem is that Myriad’s test was the only one. Doctors and scientists who wanted to develop alternatives were blocked. Patients had no choices. The company’s handling of its monopoly generated outrage “Why were physicians and scientists so upset? It was the breadth of Myriad’s claims,” Robert Cook-Deegan, a policy researcher at Duke, explained to me. “And it really bothers women when they can’t get a second opinion, and there’s only one way to get the test, which is the way Myriad has chosen. This case is about who gets to make decisions—whether the company with the patent gets to say, ‘this is how we’re going to do testing for these genes in the United States.’ ”

The point of patents is to protect the investment it took to create or invent something new. It’s a way we reward and encourage invention. In 1793, as Yale history of science professor Daniel Kevles points out in his extremely helpful article for the New York Review of Books, Congress borrowed the words of Thomas Jefferson and declared patents available “for any new and useful art.” In 1952, the scope of potential patents expanded to “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement.” 

Does “composition of matter” include the BRCA genes—and should it?

 According to Kelves, the company blocked several biomedical scientists from conducting clinical research on the BRCA DNA, except under severe restrictions. It could, if it wished, prevent scientists from exploring the meaning of mutations of unknown significance that the tests might reveal. Myriad also kept for itself the right to incorporate the discovery of the new alterations in the BRCA genes, even those made by others, into the diagnostic tests. It thus retarded the development of the most comprehensive tests possible for women at risk. Except as the company allowed, no other laboratory could assess the reliability of its tests or improve upon their speed or cost.

 Kelves goes on to say, "By empowering Myriad to control all research and uses of a unique part of nature, the patents impeded the progress of science and the useful arts. By restricting access to and use of the genetic information that the DNA embodied, they gave Myriad control over all 'thought, knowledge, and ideas' concerning the genes, a monopoly that the First Amendment, in accord with judicial holdings, prohibited the PTO [Patent Trade Office] from granting." Thus, with Myriad, the Court stands on the verge of endorsing a venerable principle in biotechnology patent law: human beings are improper subject matter for patenting.

Read the original link in Slate.

I especially encourage a better understanding by reading the article by Daniel Kelves' in the NYTimes Review of Books, "Can They Patent Your Genes?"

Divorcing your ISP for T-Mobile

I can see why many people do not divorce Google, no matter how bad their privacy invasions are, but would you divorce your current ISP for T-Mobile.  I am.  Some of you know of the "Great Cellphone Subsidy Con" but if you don't, read this NYT article on how to break free of cellphone contracts and penalties.  The offer by T-Mobile is hard to pass up, especially knowing how much money you give your ISP beyond the price of your phone.  PLUS, you can leave T-Mobile at any time with no penalties!  Granted, they are last on the block, but they will get bigger.

My daughter needs a new iPhone (yes, T-Mobile now accepts all phones), and I'm tired of paying way too much for a family plan.  They can all move to T-Mobile.

So, are you divorcing your current ISP, knowing what you now know??   

The Child, the Tablet, and the Developing Mind

As I finish up your unplugged challenges, I read today (3/31) this blog in the NY Times on the effect of disruptions on very young children's developing minds.  It starts with a mom pulling two iPads out of her "magic bag" to give to her two very young children who were squabbling in a restaurant while the mom was trying to have a conversation with her brother, Nick Bolton, the author.  The kids were immediately quiet.  He wrote the article because his sister wondered if she were doing the right thing by shutting up her kids with iPads.

To summarize, Nick learned: (1) Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of "iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind", says we do know that the brain is highly sensitive to stimuli, like iPads and smartphone screens, and if people spend too much time with one technology, and less time interacting with people like parents at the dinner table, that could hinder the development of certain communications skills.

(2) Is it an electronics vs. non-electronics issue?  Is coloring on a piece of paper better than coloring on an iPad? Ozlem Ayduk, an associate professor in the Relationships and Social Cognition Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, said it didn't matter. Children sitting at the dinner table with a print book or crayons were not as engaged with the people around them, either. “There are value-based lessons for children to talk to the people during a meal,” she said. “It’s not so much about the iPad versus nonelectronics.”

“Conversations with each other are the way children learn to have conversations with themselves, and learn how to be alone,” said Sherry Turkle, a professor of science, technology and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of the book “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.” “Learning about solitude and being alone is the bedrock of early development, and you don’t want your kids to miss out on that because you’re pacifying them with a device.” (my emphasis). She goes on to say that children "need to be able to explore their imagination. To be able to gather themselves and know who they are. So someday they can form a relationship with another person without a panic of being alone,” she said. “If you don’t teach your children to be alone, they’ll only know how to be lonely.” Read more...

 After reading your unplugged challenges, it makes me think maybe you are unable to be alone from technology (unless you are isolated from others). What do you think? You're in your 20s and in college, so you have more opportunities to see and talk to people, to develop social skills, but will your future relationships (personal, work) hinge on your friends on Facebook. If you are better talking to people in person, to what do you attribute this? If not, why not? Does it go back to childhood?

Wisdom 2.0

Arriana Huffington recently spent the weekend at the happiest place on Earth.  It wasn't Disneyland, but if felt like that to her.  Last week she went to a conference called Wisdom 2.0, which is designed to address "the great challenge of our age: to not only live connected to one another through technology, but to do so in ways that are beneficial to our own well-being, effective in our work, and useful to the world."

The conference is in its third year, and its founder and host is Soren Gordhamer, who has dedicated himself to helping conference members find ways to tap into our inner wisdom even as we integrate more and more technology into our lives. This is also the topic of his book, Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets for the Creative and Constantly Connected.

What is timely about reading this article is that it is exactly the point we discussed in class, and that the readings on our "Brains on Computers" about what we know to be true: that technology is taking over practically every aspect of our lives. "There is also a growing awareness that our increasing dependence on technology puts us at risk of becoming disconnected from ourselves. The fact that this awareness, and the desire to do something about it, is no longer confined to the touchy-feely crowd was amply demonstrated in the conference's list of speakers, which drew from nearly every sector of society." They included:

• Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company
• Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn
• Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. She's not only the first Hindu member of Congress, but, along with newly elected Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, one of the House's first female combat veterans.
• Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer of Cisco.
• Sherry Turkle, psychologist and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.
• Thupten Jinpa, Buddhist scholar, writer, principal English translator for the Dalai Lama, and a visiting scholar at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford's School of Medicine.
• Jon Kabat-Zinn, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and author of the mindfulness classic, Wherever You Go, There You Are.

Clearly, this was not an anti-technology crowd. Most of them had already launched successful careers, and were at the stage where they're charging ahead and hitting their strides. Having spent a large part of their lives getting acquainted with the benefits of technology, they are now increasingly realizing the costs.

Read this article and link to the Wisdom 2.0 list of speakers.  After you see the list, click on the Videos at the top of the page.  As you contemplate the Unplugged Challenge, you should realize that you are in good company and take it seriously.   Rather than focus on how miserable you are, try to settle in on the quiet.

What do you think?  Are you, or others that you know, giving up some degree of technology use.  It is  a habit, if not an addiction.  Habits can be broken.  I'm just giving you a reason to do so.  Thoughts?

Why Kids Can't Search

I was in the middle of finding an article for the class related to the topic of privacy, when I found this article in Wired by Clive Thompson (another great resource, I'll post later).  It had to do with how bad students are in searching for information.  I think it's useful to post this now as you get ready to find blog posts.

He starts by saying that young people tend to be the most tech-savvy among us.  But they are wretched at searching.  A group of researchers led by College of Charleston business professor Bing Pan tried to find out. Specifically, Pan wanted to know how skillful young folks are at online search.  His team gathered a group of college students and asked them to look up the answers to a handful of questions. Perhaps not surprisingly, the students generally relied on the web pages at the top of Google’s results list.

Other studies have found the same thing: In a recent experiment at Northwestern, when 102 undergraduates were asked to do some research online, none went to the trouble of checking the authors’ credentials. In 1955, we wondered why Johnny can’t read. Today the question is, why can’t Johnny search?

But it may not be your fault.  Professors assume you already have this skill, even though it is rarely taught.  "The buck stops nowhere."   Why not let students start a class blog on a subject and see how long it takes for it to show up in search results?  I may just try this.

Read more...  We'll talk about this more in class, but one of the reasons I post other websites is to get you AWAY from using Google (and YouTube) for EVERYTHING.  Try some critical thinking.  It will help you in the long run.