Month: April 2012
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NPR interview on “The Death of Facts”
I was interviewed for NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered on “The Death Of Facts In An Age Of ‘Truthiness’” — here’s the audio (the part I’m in starts at 7:20 in the clip): A transcript of the interview is here.
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More on pre-accepted academic articles
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a proposal for four academic reforms. Most notably, I suggested that academic journals should pre-accept articles based on their design before results are available to authors, which would reduce the system’s bias toward statistically significant findings that fail to replicate in future studies. Unsurprisingly, other people have had
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Obama’s second scandal: Secret Service
A few weeks ago, I noted the arrival of the GSA scandal as the first under President Obama to meet the standard used in my research: a front-page Washington Post story that focuses on the controversy and describes it as a “scandal” in the reporter’s own voice. I then taped an interview with NPR’s On
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Academic reforms: A four-part proposal
Academia tends to be slow to embrace change, but here are a few ideas that I think are worth considering for improving how we evaluate students, conduct research, and run our journals. 1. The pass/fail first semester Two of the most significant problems we face in higher education are grade inflation and underprepared students. There
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On the Media interview on presidential scandal
I was interviewed by Bob Garfield for On the Media about my research on the role of the news cycle in presidential scandal (PDF), including the GSA scandal that I posted about a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the audio for those who are interested:
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New Tumblr blog
I’ve set up a Tumblr version of this blog so that those who use the service can follow me there, reblog posts, etc. Please check it out if you’re a Tumblr user!
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New at CJR: The dangers of silly season
I have a new column at Columbia Journalism Review on how bored reporters and social media can hype fake controversies and spread misinformation. Here’s how it begins: When Rick Santorum suspended his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination on Tuesday, he removed any remaining doubt that Mitt Romney would be the Republican presidential nominee. The
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New at CJR: Narrowcasting the 2012 election
I have a new post up at Columbia Journalism Review on how the media’s focus on swing states and voter demographics misses the big picture. Here’s how it begins: With Mitt Romney’s hold on the GOP nomination becoming too obvious to deny, horse race enthusiasts in the political media have quickly shifted to handicapping the
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The Obama administration’s first scandal: GSA spending
The first Obama scandal has arrived. Last May, I wrote a column on how the Obama administration had managed to avoid scandal* for longer than we might otherwise expect: My research (PDF) on presidential scandals shows that few presidents avoid scandal for as long as he has. In the 1977-2008 period, the longest that a