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I agree there's good journalism being done but Chricton's observation is not completely off either. The nature of _most_ reporting requires that journalists tal

I agree there's good journalism being done but Chricton's observation is not completely off either. The nature of _most_ reporting requires that journalists talk about stuff without being adequately informed. They have to produce stuff on demand and there's little penalty to getting stuff wrong. In any field there's going to be variability in quality and it's not fair or wise to tar the whole field with the same brush but I think journalism sometimes attracts people who have a different relationship with facts and ideas than I do. I read a piece by a moderately famous journalist a while ago (and I've been trying to figure out who even since with no luck) who when talking about his practice said that sometimes there _are_ no experts in a particular subject and the journalist has to do a 'deep dive' and become the expert. Now he didn't say exactly what constitutes a 'deep dive' but it struck me as profoundly arrogant and symptomatic of this problem.

tptacek 8y ago
Sometimes they're talking about becoming experts at linear algebra† and we roll our eyes and fair enough, but sometimes they're talking about becoming "the" expert about disability compensation for West Virginia coal miners, and they aren't fucking around, that is for real. But popping a couple frames back off the stack: the argument that most of what's in the NYT is superficial or "bullshit" is silly. Though maybe stay away from the opinion section. What's annoying is how hard these dumb barbs are to rebut, even when they're plainly fatuous. Like, I had to go navigate through the Pulitzer categories and relay back to the thread how to do it, and all the original commenter had to do was write "the NYT and USA Today are the same thing and both are just superficial made-up trash". † though I'm sort of waiting to spring a little quiz on the next person who takes a shot at Gladwell for "Igon Values".
- pvg 8y ago
  I have to admit, since I'm tut-tutting at other people, that I like spoken-Gladwell much better than written-Gladwell. And it's the same style and the same stuff. It's disturbingly subjective (although it would have kept him out of Igon trouble).
  - tptacek 8y ago
    He's really quite excellent at what he does, which is "writing and speaking". I don't know why it was ever supposed to be a sick burn that he didn't know what a characteristic polynomial was. I agree with you, I think. His writing is fantastic (just, like, as a deployment of the English language) but his podcast is better than most of his New Yorker stuff and definitely than his books. I've re-listened to the university funding stuff a couple times.

tptacek 8y ago

Sometimes they're talking about becoming experts at linear algebra† and we roll our eyes and fair enough, but sometimes they're talking about becoming "the" expert about disability compensation for West Virginia coal miners, and they aren't fucking around, that is for real. But popping a couple frames back off the stack: the argument that most of what's in the NYT is superficial or "bullshit" is silly. Though maybe stay away from the opinion section. What's annoying is how hard these dumb barbs are to rebut, even when they're plainly fatuous. Like, I had to go navigate through the Pulitzer categories and relay back to the thread how to do it, and all the original commenter had to do was write "the NYT and USA Today are the same thing and both are just superficial made-up trash". † though I'm sort of waiting to spring a little quiz on the next person who takes a shot at Gladwell for "Igon Values".

pvg 8y ago
I have to admit, since I'm tut-tutting at other people, that I like spoken-Gladwell much better than written-Gladwell. And it's the same style and the same stuff. It's disturbingly subjective (although it would have kept him out of Igon trouble).
- tptacek 8y ago
  He's really quite excellent at what he does, which is "writing and speaking". I don't know why it was ever supposed to be a sick burn that he didn't know what a characteristic polynomial was. I agree with you, I think. His writing is fantastic (just, like, as a deployment of the English language) but his podcast is better than most of his New Yorker stuff and definitely than his books. I've re-listened to the university funding stuff a couple times.