Every single day, the Wall Street Journal and other financial news outlets publish a financial wrapup. And you can count on it including a healthy helping of bullshit every day, too. Here’s the problem: the numbers are facts, but news requires a “story” to wrap around the facts. Creating a story from the fluctuations of…
While generalization in writing is a sin, drawing broad conclusions about a whole generation is far worse. Alexandra Levit’s piece about Generation Z in the New York Times is a great — that is, awful — example. The sin of generalization has three basic flavors: generalizations hedged with weasel words; unsupported broad, sweeping statements; and generalization from one…
The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn interviewed NBA Players’ Association executive director Michele Roberts and got nothing but spin. So he published it. Look, I feel for sports reporters. There is so much fan appetite, so much space to fill, and so little content. But everyone knows negotiators want to negotiate, are willing to compromise, and say…
Today I’ll dismantle the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the Ellen Pao-Kleiner sex-discrimination suit. I don’t analyze facts, I analyze writing. You may think the lawsuit is bullshit or the verdict is bullshit, but that’s not my concern. What I will show you is that this article, like much of the news in mainstream publications, is padded…
My name is Josh Bernoff and I hate bullshit. So do you. But the difference between us is: I intend to do something about it. After 40 years in academia and the corporate world, I’ve had my fill. I’ve seen it all. Articles from respectable publications full of generalizations and filler. Spurious statistics. Consultants’ reports…