May 8, 2007
SELLING THE FIRST AMENDMENT
The idea of a museum celebrating the Constitution's first amendment guarantee of a free press seems like a great idea, especially if it's one that highlights the great personal costs that can be associated with exercising that freedom. That sounds like what the new Newseum being built in Washington D.C. might offer:
Time magazine’s armored truck from the Balkans, pockmarked with bullet holes, has been hoisted into place. The laptop used by Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered in Pakistan in 2002, has arrived. So has the vest that Bob Woodruff of ABC was wearing last year when he was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
Like the modern media that enjoys those hard-fought and costly freedoms, however, it seems like the Newseum is eager to cheapen, trivialize, and whore itself out for a buck as quick as it possibly can. One of the items also on display will be the bedroom slippers of Ana Marie Cox, the original Wonkette, who partnered up with a hooker to make her name as a blogger/journalist while helping the hooker sell her book. So, real classy. And nothing shouts freedom of the press like luxury apartments and a Wolfgang Puck restaurant!
The building’s transparent exterior is meant to convey the idea of a free press and an open society. A mammoth rectangle frames the facade, suggesting a television or computer screen that provides what the museum calls a “window on the world.” Visitors enter through a Great Hall of News, where they can see breaking stories on a giant digital “zipper” before setting out on a 1.5-mile path of displays and interactive kiosks. The building, which has seven floors, also contains 135 upscale apartments, Newseum shops and Wolfgang Puck’s three-story restaurant, the Source.
Remember when people used to bitch about the proliferation or growing size of museum gift shops? That was so cute. This isn't a museum about freedom of the press. This is a museum about the media. A big profitable, self-aggrandizing, navel-gazing window into the world of news as business and spectacle. If I were Marianne Pearl, I would ask for my late husband's laptop back.
Tagged: media, newseumPosted by Lexiphane at 12:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 15, 2007
THE TRUETH IS OUT THERE
Oh my, I did not realize this. According to the site English-language version of the Russian website Pravda, that whole ruckus over Don Imus was an effective effort by "US War Leaders" to discredit and silence a challenging media voice. Another high-profile public figure who can expect his integrity to be demolished is Charlie Sheen. [Oh God, not little Charlie!, ed.]
"US actor Charlie Sheen is reportedly in talks to narrate an internet documentary that suggests elements of the US government were behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre.
Sheen's representatives say he was involved in the production of a new version of Loose Change, a 90-minute conspiracy theory film that has been seen by more than 10 million internet viewers."
The US War Leaders found Don Imus' destruction deceptively easy. With such a sharp and practiced COINTELPRO operator like the Rev. Al Sharpton on their side, Imus never stood a chance. It's not stated in the article, but we know for a fact that N.O.W. has been a virtual harem to Bush and his war cronies for years. Oh you insidious "US War Planners!" How will you ever be defeated? Many thanks to organizations like the Pravda site, that keep criticism of government abuses and excess credible and in the public eye.
(Tip o' the pixel to Mikester for keeping me abreast of the best on the web.)
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 8, 2007
EAST VILLAGE AUTOPSY
I wrote a piece this afternoon about the closing of a longstanding Alphabet City hangout coffeeshop called Alt Coffee. It was based on a NYTimes article with all the usual details: humble beginnings, quirky clientele, changing neighborhood, higher rents, luxury condos, blah blah blah. How many of these stories does the Times run per month? Wouldn't they be better served by saving them up for a once-a-month or once-a-week section called Urban Eulogy or something?
Is there newsroom shortand for this type of story? I imagine they call it an East Village Autopsy, regardless of where it happens, just because the EV ones are so typical. I'm picturing Monday-morning story meetings at the Times beginning with the Metro Editor Joe Sexton before his assembled staff, saying stuff like "Alright, we got a new guy on the desk; he's young and from Sacramento. Let's give him Sharpton's press conference this afternoon, elephants in the tunnel Tuesday, and an EVA by Thursday. That shit writes itself."
Tagged: east village, nytimesPosted by Lexiphane at 9:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 2, 2007
YESTERDAY'S LEAST FUNNY APRIL FOOL'S STORY
I thought the Associated Press crossed the border into BadTasteIstan with this story about gunplay at an afterparty following the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards Saturday.
Shots were fired at a party attended mostly by teenagers early Sunday following the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, wounding three people, and police said they suspected gang members were involved.
This is obviously a parody referencing the unfortunate frequency of violence at ceremonies like the Source Awards. We're of a mind that it's not generally funny to joke about kids getting hurt. Especially coming from a source like the Associated . . . wait, what?
Posted by Lexiphane at 6:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 27, 2007
FRANK THE TANK'S A KILLER
Method actord Will Ferrell is known for taking his acting to the extreme, whether it's as an Elf on the edge,an aged fratboy who'd do anything to get back in-house, or a strung-out ice skater willing to break all the rules to get back in the limelight. Today he perhaps went too far: flinging Meredith Vieira beneath his legs and onto the ice via her skull on the Rockefeller Center ice rink.
.
"Owww, that hurt", said Vieira.
Ferrell didn't respond that Brando probably would've bitch-slapped her just for blowing the shot, even though they weren't even acting, before heading to his trailer.
Tagged: ferrell, today showPosted by Lexiphane at 4:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 21, 2007
WHOOPS! WE SAID WHAT?
Frances Evelyn, the janitor who was arrested Monday and subjected to extensive questioning by the police for the repeated rape and sodomization of an 8-year-old girl, was released from custody early this evening when his accuser's story was called into question as different versions began to be told and a rape kit displayed negative results. Parents were thrown into a panic Tuesday and P.S. 91's principal was removed as news of the arrest quickly spread. Counselors were brought in to talk with students. All for nothing, apparently, as police now believe that Evelyn is innocent.
I thought WNBC's quick response to news of Frances Evelyn's release was admirable. It's not uncommon for news outlets to trumpet someone's arrest and then bury ensuing news of a release a few days later. What's interesting is that I couldn't find any record of WNBC's initial story on Evelyn's arrest. Look at the red arrow in the image above and you'll see why: WNBC still considers this the same item that it released Monday evening, just an updated version two days later. That's great that they're keeping the facts current, but it seems a little disingenous to in effect purge a story and report its 180-degree opposite as an "update." That leaves the historical record a little too malleable for my tastes. And here's something else I'm curious about: what happened to P.S. 91's principal and what happens now?
Tagged: janitor, wnbcPosted by Lexiphane at 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 18, 2007
SELECTIVE SERVICE JOURNALISM
(Table from USA Today article linked to below)
Publications love to do features on rankings, especially when it comes to academic institutions. Periodicals like US News & World Report make serious bank from their annual college-ranking issues. These efforts to settle the unquantifiable are like beauty pagents, designating one entrant better or worse than another, when in fact schools and beauty are both best determined through the eye of the beholder, i.e. they are highly subjective things to judge.
A reader recently sent me a link to a USA Today article from November of last year, reporting on a study of collegiate selectivity. It quoted an expert who correctly pointed out that it's not hard to get into college, it's just very hard to get into a very small number of colleges.
"When we read stories about how hard a time people are having getting into those very selective institutions, it's not the tip of the iceberg — it's the fly on the tip of the iceberg." says David Hawkins of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
Using data that colleges reported to the U.S. Department of Education, Hawkins crunched application and acceptance numbers for 857 four-year, not-for-profit colleges in the country that accepted more than 1,000 students in 2004. In this chart, only 2.6% of the schools accepted fewer than 25% of their applicants, while 82.5% accepted more than half.
The table above shows the top 10 most selective schools in the U.S. as determined by the study. Most of the schools should be readily familiar, but the person who sent it to me was curious about the inclusion of the two schools I've since highlighted: Cal Poly and the University of Puerto Rico–Bayamon. I doubt either of these names would jump to most people's minds when asked to think of the hardest schools to get into in the U.S. and its territories.
Cal Poly should actually not be such a surprise. California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo is a member of the esteemed California public university system. With a focus primarily on undergraduate education slanted towards degrees in engineering, architecture, and business, and located midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles (as well as ten miles from the Pacific Ocean), it's no wonder the school gets a large number of applicants. Not hurting is that annual tuition for California residents barely tops four thousand bucks. According to the school, the total cost of attending Cal Poly for a year, including tuition, room and board, fees, books, transportation, and living expenses (beer money) is only $17,000. That is only about 50% of what the other schools on the list charge for tuition and room and board.
The University of Puerto Rico–Bayamon is more of a mystery. I did some searching online and could find very little information on the school. The university's own site is in Spanish, which didn't help me much. On a purely speculative note, one can imagine how the territory of Puerto Rico might only have a small number of institutions of higher education and in some sense a captive applicant pool. This could naturally lead to a high number of applicants for a limited number of spots in each incoming class. On the other hand, one would have to imagine that such a scandalous situation––four out of five aspiring higher-ed students being shut out of furthering their education in PR––would raise some type of a ruckus among residents. There certainly seems to be something happening at UPR–Bayamon, though. According to the table above, the school's 2004 acceptance rate was 18.1%. One of the few things I managed to dig up when trying to learn about the school was this report from EdRef.com, an online college directory. EdRef's report says that in 2002, UPR–Bayamon admitted 62.8% of its applicants. What happened between 2002 and 2004 that made the Puerto Rican school three times more selective than it was before? I'll let you know when and if I find out.
Tagged: Cal poly, bayamon, college, rankings, selectivePosted by Lexiphane at 9:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS, BUT IT REALLY FADES ALL
The New York Times gets off on the right foot this Sunday, but perhaps should have bounced some ideas off an editor over the age of fourty. The concept is a great one: what are the lasting memorials to our urban tragedies, e.g., the death of 20 people in a house fire in the Bronx last week, the murder of three innocents in the West Village the other day. These things fill our airwaves and splash gallons of ink on our frontpages for a few days, but is there any withered or hallowed ground following the media's usual scorched earth practices? The Times checks it out:
Still, time’s erosions are formidable. A million people drain into and out of New York City each decade, and for those who live in many neighborhoods, four decades are no different than four centuries. You walk a line of Tudor-style town houses along Austin Street in Kew Gardens, Queens, where Ms. Genovese spent her last frantic minutes, and talk with a dozen people under the age of 40. No one has heard of her.
The Times highlights some places that are remembered and municipally sanctified. What they leave out is all the more telling. It's one thing to commemorate the killing of John Lennon outside The Dakota. A great deal fewer people commemorate the deaths of more than a 1,000 people from the LES when the General Slocum steamship caught fire in 1904. That was not only the largest loss of life in a single day in NYC's history (pre-9/11), but it shattered an entire ethnic neighborhood and initiated an exodus from the LES all the way to Yorkville, where some of its descendants remain. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is rightly noted in the article, as it is in most history books, but the 1918 BRT subway disaster wasn't. That's when an out-of-control Brooklyn subway car helmed by a strike-breaking driver jumped the rails. 102 people were killed. If you live in NYC and have heard of neither the General Slocum nor the BRT disaster, don't feel bad, most people haven't.
Frances Morrone acknowledges that most people are shocked to know of the tragic antecedents to their residency:
Mr. Morrone speaks from experience. He has taught classes inside the old Triangle Shirtwaist building at New York University in Greenwich Village, where more than nine decades ago a fire raged and factory doors were locked, and 146 female garment workers burned or plunged nine stories to their deaths. Their deaths would give muscle to the progressive era in New York, as legislators passed a raft of laws protecting the rights of workers.
“When I tell students that they are sitting in a building with that history, I’ve heard their gasps,” Mr. Morrone said. “And that’s a sensible response.”
If Prof. Morrone was in a great and expansive mood, he might share how a crowd of unruly opera fans were cut down by a U.S. militia back in the 19th Century, leaving dozens dead in the street a few blocks from NYU's campus. I think we could all do with some first-hand geographical brushing-up on the history that literally surrounds us every day.
Tagged: history, nyc, nyu, slocum, triangle shirtwaist firePosted by Lexiphane at 4:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2007
WHEN NEWS CYCLES COLLIDE
No one seems to have really noticed it yet, but two of the larger NYC stories from the past few weeks have finally intersected. This hasn't resulted in a perfect media storm yet, but with the Sean Bell Shooting indictments on the way and St. Patrick's Day Parade shenanigans to report, it's possible local outlets are just sitting on this 'til next week.
Story one is the shocking discovery that rats in NYC like to hang out in restaurants––especially a KFC/Taco Bell in The West Village. In the weeks following the videotaped rat circus, one Health Dept. inspector was fired and scores of restaurants have been closed for health violations. Many restaurateurs are claiming they're the victim of a rodent witch hunt as a city agency attempts to redeem itself in the eyes of the public. One owner of a famous pizzeria, Brooklyn's Di Fara Pizza, took it in stride though:
Despite the crap news, Dom seemed pretty chipper, taking things in stride. "I'd only wear a hat if I were bald. I'd rather pay the fine than wear the hat."
Story two on everyone's front page is the quadruple homicide in the West Village Thursday evening, when David Garvin shot the bartender at DeMarco's Pizza to death, gunned down two unarmed auxilliary police officers in the street, and then died in a hail of bullets from police on Bleeker St.
The coincidence is more than the fact that a pizzeria was involved in both stories. The owner of Di Fara and the man quoted above is actually Dom DeMarco. DeMarco's Pizza is the Manhattan sister restaurant of Di Fara Pizza and run by Dom's daughter. So the DeMarco family has managed to find itself at the intersection of two of the biggest news stories emanating from the West Village in years.
[Di Fara link to Slice.com via Gothamist.]
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2007
STUDENT DISCOUNT
The New York Times removed online access to most of its Opinion columnists a few years ago, making that and other content only available to print subscribers and those willing to pay a subscription fee to get just the now-designated TimesSelect material online. As much as I was enjoying writing about Maureen Dowd's constant need to embarrass herself in print, the thought of paying for the privelege was beyond even my sense of humor.
Fortunately, Editor & Publisher recently wrote that The Times is intent on capturing the hearts and minds of college kids and their faculty. They're now offering TimesSelect material free to anyone with an .edu suffix on his or her email address. What's even better--and this might be something The Times forgot to consider is that almost everyone who graduated from college in the last 15 years has an .edu email address from their alma mater. Schools use them as a way to keep in touch with their alumni base and most collegiate mailing systems work more as forwarding engines to whatever address an alumnus chooses.
If you'd like to dust off your old .edu address and receive TimesSelect features and content for free for at least the next four years, sign up here.
NB: If the ability to read Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich doesn't seem like a compelling enough reason to sign up for TimesSelect, do it for the Archives. Subscribers can retrieve up to 100 articles per month from The Times archives, going back to 1851. That alone is worth the price of admission, which is free with that .edu address from your school days.
Posted by Lexiphane at 6:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2007
MIND THE GAPS
This morning Gothamist.com pointed out a story that happens to be the rarest of occurences in The New York Times's reportoire: a piece about a caring mother, a sick infant, a giant insurance company, and an expensive Manhattan hospital . . . where absolutely no one is to blame for anything:
This is a small tale of the city, of a worried mother and of her new son, born ill. No one has done anything wrong in this story, not the doctors, not the nurses, not the hospital, not the insurance company.
Yet something is not quite right, and it has driven a fretful mother to extremes.
The story goes on to tell the tale of Nicole Carey, a Long Island woman who travelled 90 minutes to deliver her baby at the Lenox Hill Hospital on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Following the birth, there were complications: her son's lungs filled with fluid and Nicole developed blood clots in her uterus. After her blood clots were successfully dealt with, Nicole Carey was free to leave the hospital, but her son Preston had to remain in the perinatal intensive care unit. Is any parent really free to leave at that point?
Carey's insurance company had no reason to continue paying for her bed in an expensive private hospital––she was fine. Yet she wanted to remain close by to nurse her son every few hours and in case his condition took a turn for the worse, or the better.
For more than 115 consecutive hours, as of a 1:30 p.m. interview yesterday with this reporter, Mrs. Carey remained in the visitors’ waiting room on the sixth floor, pacing, reading and sleeping on a sofa between two soda machines and a snack machine.
Sympathetic doctors and nurses eventually let her shower in the hospital's staff facilities and after almost five days she took Preston home. That is about all The New York Times has to say about the subject, for once (and thankfully) failing to conflate it into some big-story trend. The story itself does raise the conundrum of parents with sick children in a hospital far from home.
It made me think of The Ronald McDonald House Charities, formed in 1974 to offer parents of sick children a place to stay close to the hospitals where their children were being treated––primarily in neo- and perinatal care facilities. It seems like one of those perfect societal-care roles that an organization can step in to fill, when the mission doesn't fall under the purview of government, insurance, or healthcare providers. Donations can be made to the Ronald McDonald House Charities here.
Posted by Lexiphane at 5:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2007
ONE MAN'S BREAKOUT IS ANOTHER MAN'S OUTBREAK
When an actor or actress plays a character in a movie that propels him or her from obscurity to widespread fame, it's generally referred to as a breakout performance (think Jim Carrey in The Mask or Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic.) A breakout performance is what I thought NYC rats experienced in local news broadcasts a few weeks ago, when they were captured performing the rodent equivalent of a Busby Berkeley number for the cameras stationed outside a West Village Taco Bell. As many actors will sadly attest, however, until you're famous in showbusiness, it's like you may as well not even exist.
Posted by Lexiphane at 3:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 8, 2007
WATER POLO ANYONE?
I wouldn't be surprised if sports journalists have some sort of inferiority complex. More than likely they were the scorekeepers in high school and college, rather than the athletes themselves. Once they've graduated to a professional career in journalism, however, they continue to get short shrift from their peers who look down on sports reporting as a necessary sop to the masses: it's not like sports are important or serious. That's why sports writing is always so jam packed full of metaphors for life. It's not enough to celebrate exciting pastimes. Sports must be conflated to big-picture status. More often than not, this inclination results in silliness like the latest cover of Sports Illustrated at right.
The next time a ball game gets rained out during the September stretch run, you can curse the momentary worthlessness of those tickets in your pocket. Or you can wonder why it got rained out -- and ask yourself why practice had to be called off last summer on a day when there wasn't a cloud in the sky; and why that Gulf Coast wharf where you used to reel in mackerel and flounder no longer exists; and why it's been more than one winter since you pulled those titanium skis out of the garage.
Hmmm, I'm going to ditch Ockham's Razor and guess 'catastrophic global climate change?'
And therein may lie the great value of sports. What happens in an arena so familiar and beloved may sound an alarm we will hear and heed. At a time when so much in our lives is linear and digital, from the economy to technology, sports still run in graceful cycles, marking time in rhythm with the seasons.
The above paragraph pretty much sums up the inanity of the whole article. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Seriously, what the hell is that supposed to mean? I understand what "linear" and "digital" mean conceptually. I fail to see how those words contribute to any type of coherent statement about what the author is discussing. I guess in the end it doesn't matter. Throw a bunch of nonsense into a pot, mix it together, alarm readers, give them outlets to action, feel self-satisfied, and we're done. Eco-journalism at its most regular.
Tagged: global warming, journalism, sports, sports illustratedPosted by Lexiphane at 9:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 7, 2007
STUMBLING ACROSS OLD TRACKS
The New York Times has a fascinating article today on the use of Native American trackers by the federal government to ferret out drug smugglers along the Arizona-Mexico border.
TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION, Ariz. — A fresh footprint in the dirt, fibers in the mesquite. Harold Thompson reads the signs like a map.
They point to drug smugglers, 10 or 11, crossing from Mexico. The deep impressions and spacing are a giveaway to the heavy loads on their backs. With no insect tracks or paw prints of nocturnal creatures marking the steps, Mr. Thompson determines the smugglers probably crossed a few hours ago.
“These guys are not far ahead; we’ll get them,” said Mr. Thompson, 50, a strapping Navajo who follows the trail like a bloodhound.
At a time when all manner of high technology is arriving to help beef up security at the Mexican border — infrared cameras, sensors, unmanned drones — there is a growing appreciation among the federal authorities for the American Indian[*] art of tracking, honed over generations by ancestors hunting animals.
The Shadow Wolves unit of trackers, as it is known, is fairly successful: regularly seizing about 50 tons of illegal drugs annually. The government is looking to increase the size of the unit from 15 members to the full federally funded complement of 21. The feds are also looking into using members of other tribes to secure portions of the Canadian border.
After surveying the high-tech measures used to monitor ground and air traffic along the Mexican border, William Langewiesche wrote about trackers in his book Cutting For Sign.
As dawn broke one day I met Bob Antone in Sells, and we drove south in a four-wheel-drive truck across the reservation and toward the border gate at Papago Farms. Antone works for Floyd Lacewell; he is one of the Customs Service's O'odham trackers, a burly man of forty with longish black hair. He was dressed in jeans and lug-sole boots. Trackers are also known as sign cutters, because they "cut for sign." "Sign" is evidence of recent passage across the land––a tire track, a footprint, a broken branch. "Cutting" is the action that applies to it, whether searching finding, or understanding. It is a high art. Antone described his work as "Come out here, cut for sign, maybe jump a load." He is a man of few words.
–––
Antone drove at walking speed with his head stuck outside, looking down, checking the dirt for tracks, cutting for sign. He told me more stories: We found fresh tracks and followed them through the desert, an hour, a day, two days. We jumped the smugglers and arrested them. Or, we saw where they had been, but they were too fast for us and got away. Once he said simply, "Last week a guy found five hundred pounds of coke under a tree."
Langewiesche's work has large portions devoted to drug smuggling and the Native Americans of the O'odham Nation's involvement in it––both as smugglers and sign cutters. Of course, the author wrote his book 14 years ago in 1993.
* Has The New York Times altered its stylebook? Since when are we referring to the descendants of pre-Columbian Americans as Indians again? I thought we'd settled on Native Americans. Whoops, my bad. A quick search of the Times's archive shows that the paper regularly refers to this population as Indians.
Tagged: arizona, books, drugs, mexico, new york times, trackersPosted by Lexiphane at 12:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 5, 2007
TEMPEST IN A COCOA CUP
On Water St. in Brooklyn, between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, one can slip into a shop featuring three small tables and hundreds of pounds of chocolate. It's Jacques Torres Chocolate and the chocolatier's DUMBO location offers the chance to catch a sidewalk view of gourmet chocolates being manufactured inside. For chocolate lovers, the place approaches heaven in smell and sight and it's hard to think bad blood or emnity could ever ooze from such a sweet place, like filling from a bonbon.
The Brooklyn Paper can not only imagine it, it's drizzling a choco-rivalry all over its pages this week.
The article goes on to describe the falling out between Herve Poussot, who stabbed Torres in the back by discarding the latter's hot chocolate at his restaurant Almondine, and Torres, who helped Poussot establish his own restaurant few years ago.
The sign may have been meek — “Now for sale: hot chocolate” — but it read like a dagger to anyone who knows the bitter world of high-end sweets.
Torres is now inconsolable and vowing bitter (maybe bittersweet) revenge on his gustatory and geograpahical neighbor.
“Chocolate is a huge industry and there is room for everyone!” wrote Torres, who favors exclamation marks. “In the DUMBO neighborhood, lots of businesses offer hot chocolate — Starbucks, Seven Stars Deli, Bubby’s, Front Street Pizza, to name a few. When Herve first got started, we gave him our hot chocolate product and our cups! Now he’s got his own recipe, and that is very exciting!”
Wait, what? Damn you Jacques Torres, with your sugar- and cocoa-infused demeanor! How's anyone supposed to write an article with any dramatic tension if you're going to act like such a . . . such a . . . candyass!?
[via Gothamist]
Tagged: brooklyn, chocolate, food, nyc, rivalryPosted by Lexiphane at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 27, 2007
APOLOGIES TO THE MTA. BOO ON THE SUN
Let me begin by saying that I'm occasionally an idiot with lapses in reading comprehension ability. Not often, but occasionally, so that is me over there in the dunce cap. I will deflect some of the blame, however, to whoever wrote this piece for The New York Sun on which I based the entry below. Upon close examination, it appears to be a textbook example of a wanting piece of reporting: full of mathematical non sequiturs, lacking complete information for evaluation and context, and oversimplified to the point of being misleading.
A fellow web publisher and metrophile, Jen, was nice enough to point me towards the article the Daily News ran on the same stats release from the MTA. Its article included an actual breakdown of delay numbers and causes:
Delays in one month (December 2006)
1. Track work/work crews –– 1,640
2. Signal trouble –– 532
3. Guard-light trouble –– 415
4. Sick customers –– 392
5. Customers holding doors –– 346
6. Emergency brakes triggered/no cause found –– 332
7. Broken rail –– 316
8. Unruly customers –– 313
9. System maintenance equipment –– 262
10. Emergency brakes triggered by cause –– 229
(Total: 4,770)
Right away one can see where my subway article jumped the rails. When I read:
A 45% increase in delays caused by customers who got into verbal or physical altercations on the trains brought December's total up to 313 incidents from an average of 195 per month in 2006.
I thought 313 was the total number of delays during December. I didn't associate it with the unruly passenger category because 313 is not a 45% increase over 195; it's a 61% increase. That's what led me to estimate the number of unruly passenger incidents; because I thought that figure was unstated. Also, the reporter used the phrase "December's total up to 313" (emphasis mine). What definitely was unstated is highly relevant: if unruly passenger incidents (UPIs) spiked to 313 during December of last year and the monthly average was 195, does that average include December? If so, the disparity between December and prior months is being understated. Excluding December, 2006's monthly average is 184 UPIs, not 195.
Let us turn to The Sun's original figures though. December 2006's 313 UPIs was a 45% increase presumably over December 2005, which means there were 216 UPIs the prior year. What this shows me is that the real story behind these numbers isn't that UPIs increased 45% year over year, but that there may be an annual spike in UPIs over the monthly average every December. Is this some sort of Christmas Effect in reverse, where tired grumpy shoppers laden with bags and packages, sick of lines and crowds, and perhaps with a few eggnogs in them are more likely to get into it with their fellow passengers?
The Daily News also points out that blocked door incidents (BDIs) were the real gainers. UPIs may have cracked the top 10 for the first time, but BDIs have risen from 20th place to 5th over the past five years, totalling 346 in December 2006.
About the only thing I had correct in my prior piece [see BLAMING THE VICTIM, 2/27/07] is that there seems to be an awfully strong focus on system delays being the fault of passengers. But while UPIs may have been up 45% year over year in December, they still only accounted for 6.6% of delays. This percentage is overstated of course, because the total I used was only the sum of the top ten categories, not the actual total number of delays, which was not released. Without seeing the figures for 2005, it is difficult to judge the magnitude of this change on the whole, but it still seems like a rather small-fry figure to be focusing on. I wouldn't mind seeing some serious clarification regarding this whole issue in The Sun soon.
Followup: I recently received some strong constructive criticism from someone who works the transit beat for an area news outlet letting me know that my original story about subway delays [see BLAMING THE VICTIM, 2/27/07] was very wrong and completely mischaracterized the MTA, as well as the press's treatment of the story. And he is correct, as this piece admits. Perhaps I'll put the self-admonishing disclaimer in bold for future readers. My constructive criticizer also noted that an MTA spokesperson specifically contacted reporters via an e-mail emphasizing that the MTA was in no way trying to blame riders for service delays. I appreciate his insight into the matter and thank him for setting me straight.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2007
I'M FLATTERED
I've enjoyed reading James Taranto's BEST OF THE WEB TODAY feature at the Dow Jones OpinionJournal site since it debuted about six years ago. Taranto's got a great eye for picking out news articles and dissecting them, usually with a tongue-in-cheek tone. He had a lot to say today, of course, about President Bush's State of the Union Address the prior evening, and threw in his thoughts on Virginia Democrat Sen. Jim Webb's rebuttal, beginning with the Senator's metaphor:
As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the general who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War II. And as soon as he became president, he brought the Korean War to an end.
Actually, it's not quite accurate to say Ike brought the Korean war to an end. The Koreas signed an armistice but never a peace treaty, and thus remain technically at war, with some 30,000 U.S. troops still in South Korea to protect against the North--though the current stalemate, for the moment at least, is bloody only for the people of North Korea. The inconclusive outcome of the Korean War can easily be interpreted as a warning of the dangers of leaving threats for future generations to deal with.
Jeez that sounds kinda familiar, as if I read that someplace before . . . [see WORST--BUT MOST APT--ANALOGY EVER, 1/23/07]:
As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. “When comes the end?” asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.
That's a great story Senator, but unfortunately the Korean War is technically still in progress. North Korea never signed a treaty agreement with U.N. powers, but only agreed to a cease-fire and the establishment of a demilitarized zone between the North and the South. The U.S. still requires and maintains a significant military presence in South Korea, a country that developed into a nation with a First World economy and democratic institutions while under our constant protection. North Korea, on the other hand, we left in the hands of a megalomaniacal dictator who turned his nation into a prison camp where mass starvation is a fact of life and tool for quelling political dissent. Power was assumed by his son at the time Kim Il Sung's death; a son who by most observations appears quite insane. I'm sure the North Korean people (not discounting the millions who died under Kim Il Sung and then his son) really appreciate our quick exit from an unfinished conflict.
I think I prefer the second one better. It's less succinct, but kind of more my style so to speak. One can subscribe and have BEST OF THE WEB TODAY delivered via email daily by clicking here.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 13, 2007
BUSINESSWEEK GETS COOL IN '07
(L-R, Thom Monahan, Joe Pernice, Patrick Berkery, Peyton Pinkerton)
In the January 22, '07 issue of BusinessWeek Magazine, the ExecutiveLife "My Tunes" column is written by Mike Marrone, the program director for XM Satellite Radio's channel The Loft. His piece is titled "The One Album I Can't Stop Playing" and it certainly constitutes high praise.
"Although I am often asked what my real personal favorites are, I rarely make lists because I'm always afraid of leaving something off. But I can safely attest that
Live a Little (Ashmont), the sixth full-length release from the Pernice Brothers, is not only my absolute favorite album of 2006 but will unquestionably reside on my list of Best Pop Albums of all time."
Marrone gushes on in that vein for the pages three columns. That is the Pernice Brothers pictured above. The drummer Pat Berkery (second from right) played with my brother Ed for many years as a member of The Bigger Lovers. I'm embarrassed to say that I don't have The Pernice Brothers' latest album, but it's now on my list of things to pick up.
The "My Tunes" column is currently only available online to BusinessWeek subscribers, but the issue is still on newsstands if one wanted to pick up a copy or just peruse page 84. Also, visit the band's site. There's a lot of great audio and video content that's worth checking out.
(Tip of the pixel to reader M.M. for correcting us on the identity of band member Thom Monahan pictured above.)
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 5:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 8, 2006
IN THE AFTERMATH OF A DAY OF INFAMY
Yesterday was the 65th anniversary of the December 7th bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, the catalyst for the U.S.'s entry into World War II and what President Franklin Roosevelt described as "a day that would live in infamy." The New York Times' site does the paper, one of its reporters, and readers a great service by making available the six-part, 15,000 word series written by its Pearl Harbor correspondent Robert Trumbull describing the rebuilding of the naval facility in the months after the attack. The six articles are available in PDF format and are as follows:
Salvage Effort Reveals American Ingenuity
Once proud warships were restored to fighting trim.
How the Nevada Was Saved
In a miracle of reclamation and repair, the destroyed battleship returned to life.
U.S.S. California, a Massive Challenge
The sunken Nevada was only a warm-up for the task of raising the giant California.
West Virginia, New and Improved
Yard workers rebuilt the severely damaged West Virginia from the inside out.
Righting the Oklahoma
Through monumental engineering, the capsized Oklahoma was slowly rolled back.
Inside the Hull of the Oklahoma, a Dismal Hell
Robert Trumbull gives a first-hand account of his underwater exploration of the Oklahoma.
The special Times editorial section also includes an audio slideshow of images related to the pieces, telegrams exchanged between Trumbull and his managing editor at the paper, Trumbull's 1992 obituary, and a current piece looking back at Pearl Harbor after 65 years.
Trumbull's series of articles reminds me of William Langewiesche's three-part series printed in The Atlantic Monthly titled "American Ground" that was later published in book form. It told the story of the near-superhuman efforts and accomplishments of the deconstruction of the World Trade Center site following its destruction. It still stands as the longest piece of reporting ever printed in The Atlantic.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
JOURNALISM, BLOGGING AND GOVERNMENT REPRESSION
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) yesterday released a report detailing various governments' crackdowns on journalists or individuals accused of criticizing their rule.
When Iranian journalist Mojtaba Saminejad was sentenced to two years in prison for insulting the country's supreme leader, it was not for an article that appeared in a newspaper. His offending story was posted on his personal Web blog.
Nearly one-third of journalists now serving time in prisons around the world published their work on the Internet, the second-largest category behind print journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in an analysis released Thursday.
The bulk of Internet journalists in jail -- 49 in total -- shows that "authoritarian states are becoming more determined to control the Internet," said Joel Simon, the New York-based group's executive director.
What is alarming is that many of the so-called offending pieces that landed the jailed individuals in hot water weren't even published in their home countries, but through overseas outlets.
Tao, the jailed Chinese journalist, could have published his notes on state propaganda in the Chinese magazine in Hunan province where he worked as an editorial director. He chose instead to send an e-mail from his Yahoo! account to the U.S.-based editor of a Chinese language Web forum.
Of course, pieces could be filed under a pseudonym or anonymously to circumvent punishment of authors. Such tactics, however, dilute their authority and validity as an author's reputation for veracity and agenda cannot be properly evaluated by his or her audience.
The WNBC story about the CPJ report doesn't note whether or how the organization distinguishes between professional journalists or simply individuals self-publishing on the Internet. It is not an insignificant differentiation, as "the press" usually is afforded certain legal protections and precedents to secure its independence. In my mind, Internet self-publishers, of which bloggers are a subset, seem most historically reminiscent of pamphleteers. Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" was published and distributed in pamphlet form in 1776. The document argued for independence from England and the establishment of a constitutional republic. Incidentally, Paine would later be labeled an outlaw persona non grata in England for publishing anti-monarchist pamphlets supporting the French Revolution. The French themselves eventually threatened Paine with execution for his objection to the execution of King Louis XVI. The former escaped the country with the help of James Monroe, then serving as the U.S. Minister to France. Paine had no prior experience as a "professional journalist." He was a public intellectual. Opponents probably considered him a gadfly, governments an agitator. Attempting to make legal distinctions between the freedoms of ordinary citizens and an established press seems like a poor idea.
I'm not the only one who's given thought to the similarity of Internet self-publishers and Revolutionary-era pamphleteers.
CPJ's breakdown of jailed reporters by country with details concerning each case is available here.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 4, 2006
SHRINKING JOURNAL
After a significant redesign just four years ago, The Wall Street Journal will be slimming down after New Year's Day.
The Wall Street Journal, whose wide pages and text-rich look have long been an icon of the American newspaper business, is about to undergo several changes that include cutting 3 inches off its width.
Along with the size reduction, which is equivalent to about one of its columns, the newspaper will add more color and graphical elements, including greater use of photographs. It also will have fewer stories "jump" inside the newspaper.
This will bring the Journal in line with the width of most other major newspapers and apparently save Dow Jones, Inc. $18 million a year in savings, mostly through printing costs. The cuts were deemed necessary as the paper's ad revenues tapered in recent years.
The Journal has struggled more than other major newspapers in recent years due to a prolonged slump in financial and technology advertising, which are its two mainstays.
The paper has moved to diversify its revenue streams by adding an arts and leisure section called "Weekend Journal" in 1998 and a consumer-oriented section called "Personal Journal" in 2002, which was part of a broader overhaul that also brought more color and graphics to the paper.
The New York Times made a similar concession to falling ad revenues when it discontinued Circuits as an independent section of the paper and folded a reduced version into another area of the paper.
I'm curious to see what the redesign will look like. I personally liked the addition of the Weekend Journal section on Fridays. I'm less familiar with the weekend Personal Journal section as I never received the paper Saturdays.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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