6 ms·

OT, but as I grow older I find it harder and harder to read those hyper-storified newspaper "stories". I don't care about the life story of all those people and

• jniedrauer 8y ago
  > I don't care about the life story of all those people and their kids and how and why they were riding a bike in the forest 30 years ago. I couldn't agree more. I find wikipedia to be the most terse and to the point way of consuming information (that is still accessible for me as a non-scientist). It's not always as current as I'd like but it's better than this. It would be nice if journalism could go back to being journalism.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• jawilson2 8y ago
  This is what I hate about watching the Olympics. It is 30 minutes sappily listing every tragic event in an athlete's life, and 1 minute of competition. If you didn't have anything to overcome (aside from relentlessly training for decades to become the best in the world) you probably won't be covered.
• androidgirl 8y ago
  I agree, though I'm in my early 20's. News stories are often exhausting to read now, they require filtering out hypersensationalism and identifying what's fluff and what's not. I personally wish more news was written like copy, and followed style guides focused on making information easy to find and consume.
• rsync 8y ago
  "I don't care about the life story of all those people and their kids and how and why they were riding a bike in the forest 30 years ago." Actually, the New York Times is particularly bad about this - not only about gratuitous background but also about gratuitous attribution ... very common to see an inch of column preceded by over an inch of attribution of a quote or whatever. I also find it very distracting and difficult to read. If you're interested, the Financial Times is the opposite - very concise, very pointed and even restricts front page stories to only their front page space. You can read more deeper in the issue, but the front page item is a self contained story with no page jumps.
• friedman23 8y ago
  Thank you and I agree. It feels like New York Times authors are paid by the word. If you don't like journalists trying to turn every article into a narrative I suggest reading the WSJ and simply staying out of the opinion section.
• scandox 8y ago
  I have to agree. I read 4 paragraphs and I still haven't read anything I consider pertinent. The fact is that story-telling is powerful...but done wrong it's very boring. Nothing is worse than "back story" on people we don't yet care about it and that's how modern journalists seem to think this works. Give the facts up front. Lay out the situation. Root the people and the individuals in an important context. Then - maybe - we'll be interested in their lives.
• lh7777 8y ago
  I just immediately close the tab on any article that starts with "[person's name I don't recognize] was [doing something not directly related to the article's title]". If it's a topic of particular interest (like this one), I'll come here to see if there are comments.
  • murukesh_s 8y ago
    Same here.. i found almost all nytimes articles cited in HN are always overwhelming, if that is the correct wording.
  • djsumdog 8y ago
    Pretty much what I did. I tried skimming a bunch but it was paragraphs of narrative crap. I use to read articles in The Atlantic when I was younger, but I've grown tired of this long form journalism. One thing I do enjoy are long form podcasts, because I can listen to them on the train or on long drives.
    • el_cid 8y ago
      I do the same thing every time and I am glad to see there are so many others who feel the same way.
• noetic_techy 8y ago
  Exactly, then they wonder why readership is declining.
• stupidbird 8y ago
  Sounds like you're considering reading a task to be completed and not journey to enjoy? There's nothing wrong with that of course, just different modes. It's kind of akin to the difference between reading fiction and non-fiction. Some people just don't like reading fiction and vice-versa. I like a slow, personable, factual, article like this. I get really bored if I read too many scientific journals, and this helps me actually relate to the data as a person.
  • ryanmcbride 8y ago
    I like reading slower personable stories, but I generally get that from fiction or from an article that's _about_ a person's experience. I get really frustrated when scientific articles get too bogged down in stuff like that.
• ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  It's a magazine article, not an inverted pyramid news story. Different style. It might not be your cup of tea, but you're probably the minority in terms of the overall NYTimes magazine audience. The Hacker News demographic tends to be pretty non-representative about things like this.
• Diederich 8y ago
  As a counterpoint, I'm in my 40s and I'm moving in the opposite direction. In my younger years, I'd be annoyed by all of the 'fluff'. These days, I rather enjoy it, at least for some kinds of stories. It might be because it's harder for me to remember things as I get older, but if I learn something with additional context, it's more likely to stick.
• jstankewicz 8y ago
  I see your point, but I disagree. I find that the narrative elements provide context to the data that helps me (and likely others) better grasp the personal impact of these changes. Additionally, as another commenter noted, this is a magazine article, not a news story. The format is intentionally different. That said, I think I've noticed the elements that you complain about in more traditional news stories as well. I just think that they're more acceptable in this format.
  • WillPostForFood 8y ago
    Is it context or appeal to emotion?
• hateful 8y ago
  > hyper-storified I've been complaining about this for a while. I can't stand it. And thank you for giving it that name, I was looking for something to call it.
• Faark 8y ago
  My problem is just not having the time to read such long texts. So yeah, I agree, just get to the damn point and give me the facts! On the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests for many people telling an emotional story about someone they can emphasize with is the most effective way to change their opinion, and as such necessary for that audience.
• itp 8y ago
  Yours isn't the first time I've seen this perspective. It's definitely not just you. That said, as I grow older I find I enjoy this more and more. To make a case for this particular instance, as others have mentioned, this is a magazine article, not a newspaper article, or a scientific publication. The article isn't _just_ about bug population in decline. There are a number of major and minor themes woven throughout. I feel like the narrative frame works to support that.
• dunk010 8y ago
  It just feels like indulgence on the part of the reporter. They really need to do a better job at TL;DR. I thought that the idea with reporting was that you were supposed to deliver all the information, and then iteratively peel back layers if the reader kept reading? That art seems lost.
• PavlovsCat 8y ago
  > here are what scientists think from the article: > For some scientists, the study created a moment of reckoning. “Scientists thought this data was too boring,” Dunn says. “But these people found it beautiful, and they loved it. They were the ones paying attention to Earth for all the rest of us.” [..] Amateurs have long provided much of the patchy knowledge we have about nature. Those bee and butterfly studies? Most depend on mass mobilizations of volunteers willing to walk transects and count insects, every two weeks or every year, year after year. [..] The Krefeld society is volunteer-run, and many members have other jobs in unrelated fields They don't have anything pre-packaged, it's not so easy, your criticism of the article may be valid but overall your demands are unreasonable. They are raising an alarm for people to do something. If people don't want to hear what the alarm is about because they want the thing that they need to help with to be already done for them we are in trouble. Don't just say what you want to read, ask yourself what you could write, maybe. Make the executive summary you want to see in the world, right? As for the possible consequences and remedies: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/stop-biodiversity-loss-or-we-could-face-our-own-extinction-warns-un https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/stop-bio... > The world must thrash out a new deal for nature in the next two years or humanity could be the first species to document our own extinction, warns the United Nation’s biodiversity chief. > Ahead of a key international conference to discuss the collapse of ecosystems, Cristiana Pașca Palmer said people in all countries need to put pressure on their governments to draw up ambitious global targets by 2020 to protect the insects, birds, plants and mammals that are vital for global food production, clean water and carbon sequestration. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07183-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07183-6 > Numerous studies are revealing that Earth’s remaining wilderness areas are increasingly important buffers against the effects of climate change and other human impacts. But, so far, the contribution of intact ecosystems has not been an explicit target in any international policy framework, such as the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity or the Paris climate agreement. > This must change if we are to prevent Earth’s intact ecosystems from disappearing completely. Another commenter posted this: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/amphibians-declining-alarming/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/am... > A new study finds that frogs, toads, salamanders and other amphibians in the U.S. are dying off so quickly that they could disappear from half of their habitats in the next 20 years. For some of the more endangered species, they could lose half of their habitats in as little as six years. I'm no scientist, but I wouldn't be completely shocked by a connection between that and insect decline.
• thatoneuser 8y ago
  Totally agree. I got through that first story and thought to myself “damn this is going to take way too long to get to the meat”. And like you say, these stories all have the same narrative styling so it’s not even entertaining anymore. When and why is this a thing? And why isn’t it more compelling or dense?