Robert Niles thinks so. Niles writes on the Online Journalism Review site that what ails modern journalism isn't competition so much as "a stenographic model of reporting" that doesn't serve readers: "J-school cliche says 'if your mother says she loves you, check it out.' But far too often in news reporting, 'checking it out' means simply calling up another source, and presenting their confirmation or denial of mommy's alleged love in the next grafs of the story."
Science writing news
Two golden oldies from Nieman Storyboard offer tips on story selection and landing assignments. Jim Collins tells writers to find stories that can advance their careers: "If you’re trying to break into a place that is a reach for you, or you’re trying to go to the next level, think of a story that nobody else can write with your perspective." Adrian Nicole LeBlanc talks about the importance of casting wide net in your search for story ideas.
Because science could suffer without it, Matt Shipman writes in a Scientific American guest blog: "We could talk about the need to inspire the next generation of scientists or addressing the paltry state of science literacy, but if we’re going to ask people to take time away from other obligations we’re going to have to do better than that." He lists five major benefits for scientists who publicize their findings, from finding grad students to satisfying funders.
The Jonah Lehrer Story: a whale of a tale of adaptive reuse gone wrong. How to make recycling your writing kosher. Did Lehrer plagiarize Malcom Gladwell, or did they both make use of William Goldman? Also: Black bears can count too, sort of. Also: Whooeee, the Higgs boson is back! And the buzz is that this time the Higgs is really real.
No sooner had the New Yorker science writer's career crashed than the questions began. If you recycle parts of a story you've written, exactly what is your action called? Some call it self-plagiarism. On Ars Technica, Jonathan M. Gitlin says it depends: "Can you really plagiarize yourself? Is it plagiarism to get paid to give talks that rehash work you've written?" More from Andrew Beaujon and Craig Silverman at Poynter.
Not if Curtis Brainard's post on CJR's The Observatory is any indication. Two decades after the world was focused on the first Rio climate conference, which yielded frameworks on climate change and biodiversity, this year's version — which starts today — is getting little attention: "Google News already delivers around five million results for 'Rio+20,' but it’s clear that many outlets aren’t as interested [in] the international powwows as they used to be."
Sure you know about LinkedIn and Storify, but have you heard of Intersect or Timetoast? Steve Buttry discusses those and more than a dozen other sites that job-seekers should know about. They include Clippings.me ("a place to organize and display your best stories"), Intersect ("a storytelling tool that uses a timeline and map to show where time and place intersect"), and Timetoast ("a storytelling timeline tool that you can use to tell the story of your career").
Christian Hunt has a good rant on the Carbon Brief blog. Why do so many climate-related stories fall back onto the same old themes for photos — the polar bear on a melting floe, the cracked soil in a drought-stricken land? "There are images which get used because they push people's buttons, but don't really help unpack a topic. Polar bears on ice, burning planets — they're cliches that you can't really rely on to inform and explain." He includes nine top offenders.
From Nieman Storyboard, an interview with David Grann about his New Yorker portrait of William Morgan, "an American ne’er-do-well who drifted from vocation to vocation (including fire-eater) before finding his way to Cuba," becoming a hero of the Revolution, then, 19 months later, an accused traitor facing a firing squad. Grann discusses how he reconstructed events from 50 years ago via documents and interviews with Morgan's contemporaries.