Search the Site

Posts Tagged ‘Journalism’


Your Hedge Fund Questions, Answered

A few days ago, we solicited your questions for hedge fund manager Neil Barsky. As always, your questions were terrific, and so are Barsky’s answers, below. One thing that surprised me, however, is that nobody asked Barsky, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, what he thinks about Rupert Murdoch‘s purchase of the Journal (and the rest of Dow Jones). This . . .



Meet Newser.com

There’s a new news aggregator in town, called Newser.com, and from the quick look I gave it this morning, it immediately looks like one of the best I’ve seen. It summarizes the major news stories in a good paragraph or two, then provides prominent links to the major newspapers and wire services that did the original reporting, which makes the . . .



What an Honor, and It Only Costs $3,995

After Freakonomics got popular, it was unbelievable how many interview requests/invitations I received. I don’t think I’m exaggerating in saying there were at least 10 per day for a year, or over 3,500 in that time. Now I get “only” three or four a day. Needless to say, I got really good at saying no, much to the chagrin of . . .



The Campaign Finance Bottom Line

Do you ever wonder why the media covers election campaigns so vigorously? Is it really necessary to know what each of the dozen-plus major-party early presidential candidates are doing on a daily basis, and what’s going on among their campaign staffs, and what their spouses like to eat and what sports their kids like to play? It may just be . . .



The Mole

Money magazine has a new columnist who simply goes by the name “The Mole.” I love the idea behind the column: an industry insider reveals the dirty secrets of financial planner misdeeds to the general public. I won’t blow his cover, but I know the guy who is writing it. He is smart and has interesting ideas. And, surprise, surprise: . . .



You Know the Blogosphere Is Real When …

Although I’ve been writing journalism in one form or another for a long time, I would like to think that I am not the kind of journalist who makes friends or family uncomfortable about saying something casually that that they don’t want known publicly. That said, it does happen that someone will mention something over dinner, e.g., and then quickly . . .



What Do a New Orleans Death Spike and a Study on Surplus Embryos Have in Common?

They were both widely reported this week, although not at ABC News. Gary Langer, who runs polling at ABC and also acts as its data cop, kept both stories off the air after kicking their tires and determining that they weren’t worth reporting. Langer was obviously not sufficiently consulted in the Paris–Hilton– gets-out-of-jail story.



The Benefits of a Bubble, Even When Burst

Daniel Gross is a very good and quite prolific writer on the economy, from his “Moneybox” columns in Slate to his “Economic View” columns in the New York Times; soon, he will be taking his skills to Newsweek. His new book, Pop! Why Bubbles are Great for the Economy, tells the story of various American investment bubbles, from frenzied railroad . . .



The Perils of Outsourcing

Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post has a funny take on the notion of outsourced journalism, taking off on a real story — about Indian journalists covering town meetings in Pasadena — that we blogged about here. You may recall that Weingarten is the same journalist who wrote the fantastic piece about world-class violinist Joshua Bell‘s undercover concert in a . . .



Riddles of the N.B.A.

On his CNBC blog, sports-business wizard Darren Rovell calculates how much the first overall N.B.A. draft pick is actually worth, at least in terms of his first year, measured by increased wins and increased attendance. The answer? Quite a bit. Rovell shows that in the past 11 years, the team with the No. 1 pick had an average attendance increase . . .



Ratting Out the Rats

Back when I worked as an editor at the New York Times Magazine, it was a pretty regular occurrence to send an article up to the legal department for vetting. One of the lawyers that I dealt with there was named Adam Liptak. I liked him a great deal for two reasons: as with the other lawyers there, he always . . .



When Doctors Write, Part II

Not long ago, I wondered aloud on this blog why so many doctors write so well. The two doctors I mentioned in detail were Jerome Groopman and Atul Gawande, both of whom have new books out. For those of you interested in this subject, take note that Abigail Zuger, who is an M.D. herself, has written an article in the . . .



Outsourcing Journalism?

Pasadena Now, a news Web site devoted to local coverage of the Pasadena region, has taken the term “outsourcing” to new heights, hiring two reporters in India (one of whom graduated from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism) to cover the goings-on of the Pasadena City Council from 9,000 miles away. The goal, according to editor and publisher James . . .



Bill O’Reilly’s Bullying Now In Hard Data

Via Carl Bialik, The Wall Street Journal‘s Numbers Guy: Indiana University assistant professor of journalism Mike Conway has released a report calculating the number of times Bill O’Reilly used name-calling and other so-called “propaganda techniques” on his show. The data were gathered by volunteers who catalogued 105 episodes of O’Reilly’s two-minute “Talking Points Memo,” tallying the use of seven rhetorical . . .



Guest Blog: Who’s to Blame for Inaccurate Election Polls?

A few days ago, I blogged about how pre-election polls have historically overstated a minority candidate’s standing, but how that gap seems to be shrinking. In other words, according to the Pew Research Center article I cited, people used to lie to pollsters about their willingness to vote for a minority candidate, but now they do so less often. This . . .



What’s Al Gore Have in Common With the Ku Klux Klan?

A few nights ago in San Antonio, Al Gore gave his global-warming lecture at the American Institute of Architects’ national convention. “It’s in part a spiritual crisis,” he said. “It’s a crisis of our own self-definition – who we are. Are we creatures destined to destroy our own species? Clearly not.” According to the San Antonio Express-News, Gore was “especially . . .



The Wall Street Journal Schools Us on Web Subscriptions

A while back, Levitt wondered why the Wall Street Journal charges for its online version while other papers generally offer their content ice for free. Sure enough, we have an answer. Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has an editorial in today’s Journal (available for free!) titled “How to Sink a Newspaper.” It offers a detailed explanation . . .



Headlines from Pravda

I was searching the internet, researching a blog post I had in mind about the Duke Business School cheating scandal, when I stumbled onto the online version of the Russian newspaper Pravda (in English). For those who may not remember, it used to be the mouthpiece of the Communist Party. Here’s a link to the front page. I have to . . .



James Altucher Strikes Again

A few years ago, I was working on a book about the psychology of money — a book I put aside when Freakonomics began to happen. The first chapter of the book was about a fellow named James Altucher, whom I’ve blogged about before. James’s relationship with money was fascinating and precarious. He grew up in a middle-class family that . . .



“Pilotless Drone” Guy Strikes Again; Any Suggestions for Him?

Remember the San Francisco Chronicle reader who railed against the paper’s use of the phrase “pilotless drone”? (If so, you may also recall that we wondered if the reader was Matt Groening pulling a stunt.) Well, the pilotless-drone guy is back with another assault on the Chronicle, this time over a headline containing the phrase “Four-Year Anniversary,” which he declares . . .



Editorials Don’t Kill People

Imagine that you are an editorial writer at a newspaper. In honor of the annual celebration of government transparency known as Sunshine Week, you decide to write a column that includes a link to a public-records database that lists names and addresses of all members of a certain population. Now, try to imagine which of the following databases might provoke . . .



When Doctors Write

When faced with the opportunity to read a book by someone who isn’t by profession a writer, I always go for the doctor. It is the rare book by the businessman or entertainer or politician that I thoroughly enjoy; and lawyer-writers may be the worst of the lot. But doctors! Often, I love them. Arthur Conan Doyle was a marvel. . . .



Will All My Friends Be Moving to India Now?

The business woes of the U.S. newspaper industry, and of most other traditional media, have been exhaustively chronicled, most vigorously in newspapers themselves. (I sometimes think that the entire journalism/ music/film/TV industry just needs a 5-year bridge loan to help it safely migrate to the digital future, when online distribution and advertising are robust enough to support them.) So it . . .



Writing for Money

Here’s a very interesting review of a very interesting-sounding new book on Mark Twain, by Peter Krass. The review, published in the Wall Street Journal, was written by one of my favorite business journalists, Roger Lowenstein, who has written good books on Warren Buffett and Long-Term Capital Management and good recent articles on immigration and on the history of the . . .



Q&A Quid Pro Quo

The Q&A has long been a journalism staple. During my years as a magazine editor, I assigned more than a few of them myself. But it’s different now, for at least two reasons: the dominance of e-mail as a form of communication and the spike in online journalism. Not only is the Q&A more prevalent than ever, but it’s also . . .



Why I Like Writing About Economists

Over the years I have had the opportunity to write about a great many interesting people. My mother had an extraordinary (and long-buried) story to tell. I’ve interviewed Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; the rookie class of the N.F.L. ; a remarkable cat burglar who stole only sterling silver. But lately I have been writing about economists — and, most fruitfully, . . .



Sir Malcolm Gladwell

Not that Malcolm Gladwell needs us to blog about him. He only happens to have the #1 ranked book on both the New York Times hardcover and paperback lists (Blink and The Tipping Point respectively). Those are the two most interesting and entertaining books I have read in the last five years. And his New Yorker stuff is incredible. In . . .



Ghost Writers?

Of the top 50 selling books at Amazon when I checked the other day, 47 were sole-authored. In contrast, I would guess that more than 80 percent of articles published in academic journals are co-authored. This strikes me as a real puzzle. Why should this be? Usually, we tend to think that as projects become larger and more complex, the . . .