Christ – and what is happening to good, old-fashioned journalism? People, it isn’t hard to get a story (or photo) right.

Granted, it feels like eons ago, but I vaguely remember being taught to write my stories in an inverted pyramid (most important information up top, so if the reader stops reading, all he misses is the colorful minutiae at the bottom), to answer the 5 W’s and H whenever possible (who, what, when, where, -most importantly- WHY and how), to make sure my quotes were accurate and not to bury my lede.

That’s it. It does not require a degree in brain surgery to figure this out.

And yet, two reputable, national outlets have made the headlines due to inaccurate reportage – otherwise knows as plagiarism and photo doctoring.

Let’s start off with the resignation of Jayson Blair from the New York Times.

“Over the past four years, which included 50 corrections, by reinterviewing sources and examining travel and phone records, the 27-year-old reporter repeatedly fabricated material for Times stories,” writes Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.

Christ – and what is happening to good, old-fashioned journalism? People, it isn’t hard to get a story (or photo) right.

Granted, it feels like eons ago, but I vaguely remember being taught to write my stories in an inverted pyramid (most important information up top, so if the reader stops reading, all he misses is the colorful minutiae at the bottom), to answer the 5 W’s and H whenever possible (who, what, when, where, -most importantly- WHY and how), to make sure my quotes are accurate and not to bury my lede.

That’s it. It does not require a degree in brain surgery to figure this out.

And yet, two reputable, national outlets have made the headlines due to inaccurate reportage – otherwise known as plagiarism and photo doctoring.

Let’s start off with the resignation of Jayson Blair from the New York Times.

“Over the past four years, which included 50 corrections, by reinterviewing sources and examining travel and phone records, the 27-year-old reporter repeatedly fabricated material for Times stories,” writes Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.

But it doesn’t end there. On the other coast, the L.A. Times is guilty of running a photo on its front page doctored by Brian Walski…

Actual Photo

Actual Photo

Doctored Photo

And for what?

It’s been a busy couple weeks.

So the story of the day involves the 400,000 human embryos that are frozen in U.S. fertility clinics. Rick Weiss wrote a great article for the Washington Post today.

“The freezers of U.S. fertility clinics are bulging with about 400,000 frozen human embryos, a number several times larger than previous estimates, according to the first national count ever done, released today,” he wrote.

(I’ll come back to this with more time.)

Which brings me to today’s topic #2…..

Biologists are beginning to fear the sway of religious fundamentalists in DC. Law-makers are due to consider a bill later this month outlawing cloning not only for reproductive purposes but also in research – a distinction scientists are keen to draw.

The stakes aren’t high yet, but if biotechnology turns out to be the area where the next generation of medical breakthroughs come from, then the current restrictions on funding will have a much larger implications.

More immediately, prodigious defense spending is crowding out investment in education. While President Bush flexes US military muscle and plots a bold new foreign policy course as the leader of an unopposed superpower, the irony is that cosiness with industry, religious prohibitions and comparative financial neglect of non-military research may squander the very intellectual capital that helped propel the US’s international ascendance in the first place.

Something to think about.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I’m sitting here, looking over some lists…. lists of things to do, of things to read, things to learn, places to go, events to make an appearance at….


On the one hand, I would be lost without my lists of lists. On the other I feel as though I’ve strangled all of the spontaneity from my life.


And then I wonder if it’s all really necessary (and a soft voice in my head emphatically says “YES!”).

So today’s project involves notifying press of the Genetics Conference taking place this weekend. A public conversation about behavioral genetics and society. Behavioral genetics – what’s that, you may ask?


It seeks to understand both the genetic and environmental contributions to individual variations in human behavior. Do you procrastinate because your father procrastinates and his father procrastinated and his father before him? Is there a gene you can switch off to insure your punctuality in the future? Do you have free will or was it all preprogrammed? Are behaviors pre-programmed?


[and here we go to debate over nurture vs. nature]

On the metro into work today, I read this interesting article in Scientific American on synesthesia. It wasn’t until I was midway into the piece that I realized:


1. I often blended two or more of my senses


2. That this was not a normal thing

The World Health Organization said the situation in Baghdad continued to cause major concern. The Central Public Health Laboratory had been looted and incubators containing polio virus cultures had been stolen, spokesperson Melanie Zipperer said. Hospitals reported to be functioning to some extent included the Medical City complex, Yarmouk, Kadhimiya and No’man. WHO staff would continue to visit major hospitals in order to prioritize and rapidly meet the most urgent needs, she added.

“We have made contact with WHO staff in Baghdad and the information they have provided is bleak,” Ms. Zipperer said. The WHO Baghdad office had been very badly looted and burnt, all official vehicles had been stolen and much valuable equipment and information destroyed.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), meanwhile, reported an outbreak of blackwater fever in southern Iraq. The waterborne disease, also know as laeshmaniasis, leads to severe debility and eventually death if not treated within four to six weeks. Spokesman Geoffrey Keele stressed the urgency of getting medicines into the affected area.

He said the Iraqi Refugee Aid Council had reported 100 cases in Amarah, 70 in Nasiriya, and an unspecified number in Az Zubair. Children under five were the most vulnerable to contracting the disease, he added.

Last month, the Congressional Budget Office said Bush’s tax proposal would generate deficits totaling $1.82 trillion over the coming decade. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has also warned that higher government borrowing crowds out private borrowing and can lead to higher interest rates.