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??