The Monkey Cage

I agree completely, but there is also something else we can learn from journalists about how to reach mass audiences. Social scientists could do with becoming a bit more like journalists.

The important difference between journalism and social science isn’t that we check our facts better, but that journalists use the whole range of rhetorical arguments. Scientists tend to “dehumanize” their subjects, reducing them from people to data. And this is of course necessary. In that process, though, we give up the potent tool of ‘pathos argumentation’ - speaking to the feelings of the listener. We rely on ‘ethos’ - the listener’s confidence in us, and ‘logos’ - appealing to the listeners intellect. What Aristotle and Cicero emphasize is that the two latter are much more effective when combined with the former. If we could first connect to our readers and listeners emotions, we’d be much better at reaching them with our logic.

That is why I think social scientists must become better at not just reducing people to data, but making data back into people again in the end. We need to translate the data back into actual human examples. If we can do that, we’ve already done half the job of the journalist, and it’s much easier for the journalist to make our research into stories that will sell newspapers or TV ads. We also won’t have to rely on their interpretations so much.

Before giving too much credit to the journalist, whether reporting news or opining, wouldn’t it be informative to examine the journalist’s efforts to put his piece together, whom he talked with, what he researched, what he may have discarded from those he talked with and research discarded, etc, in order to determine how good a job he did? Was there a little or too much cherrypicking? Condeding that social scientists must do better in communicating, let’s not forget that journalists should do much better than have demonstrated over the past 8 years. There are too few I.F. Stone’s out there with cajones to expose the Emporer.

or, in some cases, mere personal exposure, but I can assume this is just a means to the end of getting one’s ideas out there)

Well, you could assume that, but you would be so wrong.

Let me approach this from a different view.

As a news consumer, I’m tired of being told by the major news producers that they can’t be bothered to make sure they’re telling me the basically truthful and accurate story.

Part of knowing whether you’re telling a tale of bullsh*t or something pretty close to true is double-checking your possibly bullsh*t intuitions or shared assumptions with the best research out there.

If you declare in advance that you as a news producer are unwilling to do it, why on Earth should I buy your sh*tty product?

Let me remind journalists, that I too can talk to 3 people.

That’s the easy bit for us ordinary folk who have jobs and all.

What we need journalists & social scientists for is to tell the difference between what appears to be the case and what actually may be the case.

“And, conversely, journalists want to stay on our good sides so we can feed them interesting research results and give them authoritative quotes.”

If you think journalists need you for either of those, you really do not understand the general politics of the world.

Actually, I think Andrew possibly gives journalists too much credit about their desire for quotes. In my experience (which is admittedly not too much, but I have spent a great deal of time with a number of scholars who are sought after by journalists), all too often, journalists are searching for a quote that lets them say what they wanted to already. Professors play the role of the misappropriated quote in a bad student essay.

As someone who used to be a journalist, I can confirm that there are significant pressures (deadlines, editors with preconceptions) to do just what Matt is describing.

Sverre: I think that many of us would like to be able to write like journalists, but we don’t know how. My impression is that writing like a journalist generally takes lots of practice and feedback, both of which you get working at a daily paper but neither of which you get writing academic articles.

Anon: I agree that there is a lot about the politics of the world that I do not understand. I count myself lucky that I am able to sometimes notice some patterns in data that can be useful to those who have a better general understanding than I have.

But, yes, journalists sometimes call me up to ask about research or to get quotes. They don’t need me for it but they find it convenient. Just like I don’t need to take the bus—I could walk 50 blocks if I had to, but the bus sure can be convenient sometimes.

I think the point is, Andrew, that there are many of your peers that the journalist can talk to if you choose not to because they didn’t “stay on your good side.”

One other thing on Bai…think about how the world looks like from his perspective. Just in the last week, I can think of several good markers for the continued demise of the Broder-dominant information landscape. There was a Politico story about liberal coordination of daily messages…not so much the Politico politics-as-entertainment model, but partisan news competing with “objective” news. The Stewart-CNBC thing certainly didn’t leave a place for Broder-style journalism. The Charles Freeman thing demonstrated that the blogs are successfully performing the messages-between-elites function that the newspapers and Sunday talk shows used to do. And while the Post isn’t about to go under, there’s the constant background of failing and closing newspapers.

Academics aren’t challenging the control of political information by newspapers (and Cronkite-style broadcasts) trained in objective neutrality, but that style has fallen on hard times, for better or worse, and Bai is a fairly accomplished practitioner of that style. I’m not all that surprised that he’s looking for a dog to kick, even if it’s not the one that’s responsible. It’s likely the same impulse that had someone from the Columbia J-School saying “Fuck new media” this week.

Doug,

Sure, but they want to talk with me for a reason. If they want to get someone with a pre-chosen view, they can call a partisan think tank or a known partisan academic. If they’re calling someone like me at all, I think they’re looking for something different. Sometimes they just want quick information. My point is that what they want from me (information, an opinion, maybe a quote) is different than what I want from them (exposure for my ideas).

” My point is that what they want from me (information, an opinion, maybe a quote) is different than what I want from them (exposure for my ideas).”

But what can you do if they take what you say, your ideas, out of context with selective quotes? That may not be good exposure, especially with Google that can haunt you regarding such out of context quotes for years.

Andrew: I’m sure many scientists don’t feel they have what it takes to write like a journalist. But there’s no trick of magic to it. It’s a question of effort and willingness to learn more than lack of ability. In addition, I think many scientists are afraid they’ll lose credibility if they start making human stories out of their research.

This being said - journalists are bound to be better than scientists at delivering the human story. Scientists just have to provide the necessary examples for the journalists to be better able to interpret results correctly.

…or we can just go on letting the ever-increasing time and economic constraints of journalism be the deciding factor in what gets written.