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Media
October 23, 2005
You Can Say That Again
As if by divine intervention, Scott Bolinder, the publisher of The Purpose-Driven Life, told the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell that "being able to launch that book with eleven hundred churches, right from the get-go" "became the tipping point." Gladwell is, of course, the author of The Tipping Point, so the quote fit in quite nicely in his profile of Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life. Perhaps the repeating of Gladwell's pet phrase back to him represents the tipping point of "tipping point"'s mainstreaming. Poor The World Is Flat author Tom Friedman, for all his flogging of the idea that the world is flat, hasn't gotten anyone to repeat it back to him. (A suggestion for a little selective quoting in Friedman's next column: "As even Gelflog has noted, the world is flat.")
Media
October 5, 2005
The 'Culture of Life' at the BBC
Two different articles on the BBC website mention Terri Schiavo and euthanasia today, and both of them lack the critical reporting needed to determine whether the radical claims being made in them are true. As a result, the stories are based on anecdotes rather than facts, and heavily back the pseudoscientific claims of the "right to life" movement.
Media
October 2, 2005
Sleepless Nights
"Managers of the Interpublic Group of Companies announced a restatement of more than $500 million yesterday, saying they are finally finished with their internal investigation of accounting problems and are working on a revival plan," the New York Times reported Saturday. The misstated financial figures misled investors and may have distracted the company from its clients. But those effects pale before the human toll: Some Interpublic execs missed out on sleep while preparing the restatement.
Media
September 30, 2005
Chavs of the Times
Who is Michael Carroll? According to the New York Times, he's a young, drunken idiot who is socially inappropriate and spends his money on gaudy clothes, tacky jewelry, and huge tattoos. In other words, according to the Times, he's a Chav.
Media
September 29, 2005
Penenberg Moves to Slate
New York University journalism professor Adam Penenberg, who first gained prominence in 1998 when he exposed serial fabricator Stephen Glass, is moving from Wired News to Slate, where he will continue writing columns about technology. Gelf first talked with Penenberg a few months ago when he was asked by Wired News to look into stories written for the site by Michelle Delio. (Gelf had questioned the authenticity of some of Delio's sources.) Now that he's leaving Wired News, we caught up with him over email to ask him about the next step.
Media
September 28, 2005
Cancer in the Press
No one knows for sure whether changes in diets have any influence over occurrence or spread of cancer. A few months ago, Gelf compiled an almost comical list of BBC articles about foods that have been thought to either cause or cure the disease. (In a few cases, the same vegetables were, at different times, placed in both categories.) Yesterday, the New York Times was among the first major media outlets to acknowledge the confusion. If anything, though, the rest of the media's willingness to dismiss nuance and prior studies in favor of fawning over the newest cancer-fighting wonderfood has grown.
Media
September 26, 2005
Anecdotal Journalism
David's solid reporting unearthed the flawed survey behind the New York Times's front-page announcement last week that many women at top US colleges are planning to eschew high-powered careers in favor of motherhood. As David reported, the article based its conclusions in part on an email survey with some questions phrased to elicit responses fitting with the article's premise. Gelf and many other commentators criticized the story for its flawed methods. But it's worth remembering that most trend stories are far flimsier, pinned on a suspect sponsored study or two plus two or three anecdotes and quotes shoehorned into a faulty premise. The Times's story is far from the worst of the bunch, but its high-profile placement offers us a unique opportunity to propose the following: Rid our news pages of tendentious trend stories.
Media
September 26, 2005
Conspiracy Theorist
Dolphins armed with toxic darts—escapees from covert military training ponds near Lake Pontchartrain —are roaming the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and they might be looking to harm swimmers they mistake for terrorists. An article in the British newspaper the Observer attributes this information to Leo Sheridan, "a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry." But a review of other articles based on Sheridan's claims—many of them in the Observer—show that Sheridan has a history of promoting unlikely conspiracy theories.
Media
September 23, 2005
Cliché Watch Special Edition: We Have A Problem
Yesterday, over at Poynter Online, Al Tompkins had a premonition. "So far, I have not seen anybody stoop to the "Houston, we have a problem" headline," he wrote. "Somebody will." At first, only satire sites, like The Spoof used the joke-y headline. Then Big Media jumped on board.
Media
September 22, 2005
Be Afraid. Very Afraid.
With Hurricane Rita on the way Thursday, the Associated Press eschewed its normally staid style of just-the-facts wire-service reporting for a very scary dispatch: "Gaining strength with frightening speed [eds: should that be "Gaining speed with frightening strength"? Or with "frightening acceleration"?], Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 175-mph monster… Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys and began drawing energy with terrifying efficiency from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. … with its breathtaking size—tropical storm-force winds extending 370 miles across—practically the entire western end of the U.S. Gulf Coast was in peril, and even a slight rightward turn could prove devastating to the fractured levees protecting New Orleans."
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