Over on Slate, Jack Shafer has a recurring feature called “Bogus Trend Story” in which he dissects a newspaper feature and reveals it to be hollow — essentially, all of his criticism is based on the truism that data is not the plural of anecdote. That is, too many of these stories are about one or two people who are doing something interesting, and the journalism slips when the writer tries to make it into a universal experience, which it’s not.
So I felt like emailing Shafer when I ran across not one but two recent pieces in the New York Times that I feel qualify as bogus. (Aside: I like the New York Times. I admire them. It pains me when they don’t live up to the expectations that I set.)
First of all was a piece on rising Internet use in the mornings — in the early mornings. According to data provided in the story, Internet use takes off around 6 or 7 a.m., “like a rocket.” But the bulk of the story is talking to a few families about how Facebook, Blackberries and other modern technology has ruined the traditional morning breakfast that they all used to share.
It’s a great human interest piece. Except for the fact that it’s bogus. It’s in the lede itself:
Karl and Dorsey Gude of East Lansing, Mich., can remember simpler mornings, not too long ago. They sat together and chatted as they ate breakfast. They read the newspaper and competed only with the television for the attention of their two teenage sons.
Really? So their quality family time before computers involved watching TV and hiding behind a broadsheet newspaper? Paging Dr. Rockwell … Dr. Norman Rockwell?
Later, the writer touches base with a couple of other families, but never makes the case the mornings have gotten any less frantic. The only thing that’s changed seems to be the technology they’re using. This same article could have been written about television a couple of decades ago. Or the telephone. Or, go back a bit longer, and maybe you could unearth a bitter sonnet, bemoaning the spoiled brats of “todaye” who do naught but put pen to parchment.
***
The second bogus story that rubbed me the wrong way was about the surprising resurgence of the Seattle Times newspaper — circulation’s up more than 30 per cent (!) and the paper has begun to turn a profit. Incredible, no? Heart-warming, no?
But as the article makes clear, that’s not the whole story.
You may recall that other Seattle newspaper, the Post-Intelligencer? The one that closed? The one that had a joint operating agreement with the Seattle Times. What do you think it means when one newspaper closes, but its circulation and advertising and pressroom staff still work for the competition?
The Times was able to simply switch P-I subscribers to The Times. Subscribers were free to cancel, but not many did. Times executives say that of those former P-I subscriptions that have expired, 84 percent have been renewed; time will tell whether it can sustain that rate in the long run.
The paper also raised its prices in March, increasing circulation revenue.
With most P-I readers on board, Times executives say they have been able to maintain the ad rates they charged for space in both papers.
No one would be happier to hear that a newspaper had cracked the nut of profitability in the Internet age and had figured out how to grow circulation. But this isn’t it. The Times may be getting the whole pie these days, rather than splitting it with their competitors, but the pie itself is still shrinking.
