Last Friday, I linked to some criticism of Slate by Eric Alterman and wrote this:
[T]he problem with Slate is that it's virtually content-free. There's almost never new reporting, so the articles have to present really smart takes on the news to be worth reading. But as Alterman points out, there's only one Michael Kinsley, so instead you get a lot of faux-clever "everything you know is wrong" pieces, which almost never succeed.
In comments, Jack Shafer, Slate's editor-at-large, took exception to the post:
Nyhan writes, "In general, the problem with Slate is that it's virtually content-free. There's almost never new reporting..." (Emphasis added.)
You don't supposed Nyhan could add a few more qualifiers to couch his criticism of Slate, do you?
What does Nyhan consider "new reporting"? The latest quotation from an oft-quoted talking head? A first person account of an event? Do telephone interviews count as "new reporting"? Document searches or database dumps? Is it "new reporting" to spend the day in the Library of Congress reading books? Is a piece to be considered "reported" only if it shouts out that it's "based on 27 interviews with top authorities in the field"? Is a work of journalism "unreported" if the writer spends time collecting quotations and facts but doesn't use them because they don't advance the story?
He then goes on to list his specific disagreements with Alterman (which weren't really my concern.)
So let me get right to the point. I don't particularly care about "reporting" per se. There are lots of ways for writers to add value to stories, which include the kinds of research that Shafer describes. But as I said, the problem with most Slate stories is that they don't add much value with either reporting or original factual research. When you're parasitic on the news in this way, your take has to be really novel to be worth reading. (This applies, of course, to all bloggers, including myself.) There are notable exceptions at Slate, of course -- Daniel Gross, Fred Kaplan, Will Saletan, and Shafer are all talented journalists who you should read regularly. You'll be a better person for it. In my experience, however, they're the exception rather than the rule.
Shafer also chooses rather strange grounds to defend Slate, which has explicitly sought to deemphasize reporting and fact-gathering. In 1999, Columbia Journalism Review quoted Slate's founder and then-editor, Michael Kinsley saying "I don't think the world needs more scoops," which CJR described as "defending his decision to curtail original reporting." And I've seen no sign that Jacob Weisberg, the new editor, has gone in a different direction since he took over. Does Shafer really think that more than a small percentage of Slate stories involve the kind of research he's talking about?
What I see on Slate a lot more often are first-person narratives, summaries of other media, and -- of course -- everything-you-know-is-wrong Kinsley-style journalism, as exemplified (at its worst) by defenses of vote fraud and the Pacers-Pistons riot. At the time Slate was founded, this meta- approach to the news was somewhat novel (and thus more compelling), but bloggers are doing it better now -- and that's why I so rarely read a site that was once a favorite of mine.
more of slate's everything thing you know is wrong: http://www.slate.com/id/2126124/?nav=tap3
Posted by: aaron | September 13, 2005 at 06:27 PM