Most Likely to Succeed

I thought this New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell about how to hire good teachers was really well-done. The article asks the question: "how do we hire when we can't tell who's right for the job?"

It's sort of a dry topic but Gladwell makes it interesting by leading in with an anecdote about a pro football scout who is trying to determine how well a promising college QB will fare in the NFL. He then uses that example throughout the piece to draw comparisons about predicting success for future teachers.

On the day of the big football game between the University of Missouri Tigers and the Cowboys of Oklahoma State, a football scout named Dan Shonka sat in his hotel, in Columbia, Missouri, with a portable DVD player. Shonka has worked for three National Football League teams. Before that, he was a football coach, and before that he played linebacker—although, he says, “that was three knee operations and a hundred pounds ago.” Every year, he evaluates somewhere between eight hundred and twelve hundred players around the country, helping professional teams decide whom to choose in the college draft, which means that over the last thirty years he has probably seen as many football games as anyone else in America. In his DVD player was his homework for the evening’s big game—an edited video of the Tigers’ previous contest, against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Should Google be the Murdoch for the NY Times?

A great piece out of Splice Today addresses the plight of the New York Times in a thoughtful and well-written way.

I'm not sure what Splice Today is, but it's mission statement reads, "To provoke, irritate, delight and confuse readers who are bored or dissatisfied with current online journalism."

Will Google Buy The New York Times?
By Andrew Sargus Klein
DEC 10, 2008, 10:29AM

Excerpt:

A new favorite recipe for salvation that’s kicked around the blogosphere involves none other than Google. The Times has an estimated price tag of $3 to $4 billion. (Rupert Murdoch paid $5 billion for Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal’s parent company.) A fistful of billions, even in this economy, might not be too big of a dent in Google’s bottom line and, it’s argued, the ends would soon pay back the means. The anonymous blogger at Dear John Thain divided his pro-acquisition reasons into four points: it would give Google an even more highly integrated advertising model; if Google distributes the Times, it takes in the paper’s ad revenue while also moving the medium away from dead trees; the Times’ push to personalize content couldn’t be better supported by Google; the Times’ product—the news—is priceless, and it would benefit Google and the rest of us if it stayed available.

Trib's coverage of Gov. Blagojevich's arrest

I've been very impressed today with the Chicago Tribune's coverage of the arrest of their governor. The original breaking news page has been overwritten now, but I liked their style, putting quick updates on top of each other with timestamps as the story unfolded. This is how I think breaking news needs to look online, so I wish we could still see it. They've aparently done a write-through.

I also like that they've dedicated a gallery page to their coverage of the event. It's a good idea to have all the stories related to a specific subject in one place where readers can easily scan the available headlines. I think something like this would be fabulous for our 911 Center coverage, for example.

The last thing I'm pleased to see is some great reporting coming out of a paper who's parent company just declared bankrupcy. This settles the question of newspapers' worth for me.

From David and Ron: A vignette, a column and a rebuttal for our session tomorrow

1. A compact, powerful vignette from the Journal-Sentinel series on drunk driving: http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/33618429.html

2. A column by writing guru Roy Peter Clark: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=60290

3. A rebuttal of sorts to Clark by Tim McGuire, former editor of the Mpls paper: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=60293

If you come across a good example of a short and tight but powerful piece, feel free to share it before or at the session.

What makes a good reporter?

I liked this column from the Washington Post's Deborah Howell. It's an important reminder that reporters never break their biggest stories sitting at their desk talking on the telephone. We need to hide in more beverage carts.

A successful experiment in crowdfunding? $400 raised for environmental coverage

Investigative Reporting

I thought this article on Poynter gave an interesting perspective on the future of investigative reporting and local beats, one of the State Journal's cherished traditions.

Are our leaders looking for grant programs to help fund the work of reporters in our newsroom? Might be a better option than continual rounds of buyouts and layoffs until the last reporter turns out the light and shuts the door on government accountability.

Capitol Connect - JSOnline.com

Here's a link to an interesting, useful new feature at JSOnline. Could become a great way to track the status of issues. Click the following to access the sent link: Capitol Connect - JSOnline.com* *This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser. http://data.jsonline.com/news/capitolconnect/Survey.aspx

Check this out

Here's another scintillating Capital Times police report, taken verbatim from the press release.

Roxbury daytime burglaries prompt warning from Sheriff's Office
The Capital Times — 11/25/2008 5:01 pm
Daytime burglaries have recently plagued residents of the town of Roxbury in northwest Dane County, the Dane County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday.
Between Nov. 12 and Nov. 20, six homes were broken into in the town, either through forced entry or through unlocked doors, the Sheriff's Office said.

'Why We Believe' - Newsweek

At the end of October I was really impressed by this story in Newsweek:

Why We Believe
Belief in the paranormal reflects normal brain activity carried to an extreme.
By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK
Published Oct 25, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Nov 3, 2008

Excerpt:

Some 40 percent of Americans believe it's possible that aliens have grabbed some of us, polls show, compared with 25 percent in the 1980s. What makes abductees stand out is something so common, it's a wonder there aren't more of them: an inability to think scientifically. Clancy asked abductees if they understand that sleep paralysis, in which waking up during a dream causes the dream to leak into consciousness even while you remain immobilized, can produce the weird visions and helplessness that abductees describe. Of course, they say, but that doesn't apply to them. And do they understand that the most likely explanation of bad dreams, impotence, nosebleeds, loneliness, bruises or just waking up to find their pajamas on the floor does not involve aliens? Yes, they told her, but abduction feels like the best explanation. Larry, for instance, woke from a dream, saw shadowy figures around his bed and felt a stabbing pain in his groin. He ran through the possibilities—a biotech firm's stealing his sperm, angels, repressed memory of childhood sexual abuse—and only then settled on alien abduction as the most plausible. The scientific principle that the simplest explanation is most likely to be right is, well, alien to abductees. But again, an inability to think scientifically is exceedingly common. We are more irrational than we are rational; emotions drive voting behavior more strongly than analysis of candidates' records and positions does. The universal human need to find meaning and purpose in life is stronger and more basic than any attachment to empiricism, logic or objective reality.

But what I like about the piece is that it's not an all out attack on irrational belief. It's a very well balanced (and not in the cheap, political sense, but in a higher sense I think) parsing of the tendency in some people toward belief in the paranormal.

The end is good, too, for its quickness to stop any chuckling, self-satisfied skeptical atheists reading from feeling too cocky:

It is rewarding to look at the vast hordes of believers, conclude that they are idiots and delight in the fact that you aren't. Another is that skeptics believe, or at least hope, that they can achieve at least one thing that believers seek, but without abandoning their principles. Skeptics, no less than believers, think it would be wonderful if we could speak to dead loved ones, or if we ourselves never died. But skeptics instead "seek immortality through our … lasting achievements," Shermer explains. "We, too, hope that our wishes for eternity might be fulfilled." Too bad that as they fight the good fight for rationality, their most powerful opponent is nothing less than the human brain.

Sensitively exploring a school's struggles

Coverage by Doug Erickson:

Queen of Peace principal Bolser's illness challenges students and staff

Last January, Steve Bolser, the principal of Our Lady Queen of Peace School in Madison, brought in a guest speaker to train staff on how best to help children cope with illness and death.

At the time, fifth-grader Rumer Thomas was in the final stages of brain cancer, and Bolser wanted teachers to be prepared for the difficult questions that were sure to follow.

The full value of the training session soon became evident. Twelve days after Rumer's Feb. 29 death, Bolser suddenly fell ill and was found to have a cancerous brain tumor — the same diagnosis that Rumer earlier had received.

Short stories done right

We discussed this well-crafted obituary by George Hesselberg at our session on Nov. 25:

MADISON WOMAN WAS PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL LEADER REBECCA YOUNG: 1934-2008

From Wisconsin State Journal, Wed Nov 19 2008

Rebecca Young, an approachable icon of achievement and congenial modesty for 30 years in Madison's political landscape, a steady and informed advocate with a welcoming ear for issues involving women, children, transit and the environment, died Tuesday at home of cancer at the age of 74.

She took buses, raised four daughters with her husband, Crawford Young, and kept a breathtaking schedule from the moment she arrived in 1963, starting with the League of Women Voters. She ran for election 12 times, winning every time, including County Board, School Board and seven terms in the state Assembly.

A gathering of writers

Welcome to the Wisconsin State Journal's "WSJ Good Reading" blog -- a place to share links to stories discussed by our Writers Group.