Everybody’s doing it
I’ve had a fascination with trend stories ever since reading this essay by Daniel Radosh. Like campaign-trail stories and not-in-my-backyard stories and young-lives-cut-short stories, they have their narrative, their rules of procedure.
This story in the New York Times this morning about cellular phone blockers is a textbook example. First of all, you have several unsupported generalizations in the nut ‘graph to establish the trend. For example, there is a “small but growing band of rebels” using cell phone blockers, and you have commuters on public transportation using them “increasingly.”
Then, you throw in a quote from a rather bizarre expert that the reporter dug up in some university basement:
“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”
Great! Thanks!
Then you pile on at least three anecdotal examples and presto! Trend sweeping America!
The final characteristic of a classic trend story is that the numbers cited in the article itself usually contradict the thesis that there is a trend happening, and such is the case with this story as well:
“The technology is not new, but overseas exporters of jammers say demand is rising and they are sending hundreds of them a month into the United States.”
Wow! Hundreds? I mean, wait, only hundreds? And what do you mean it’s not new? Doesn’t that mean it’s not, you know, news?
The really curious thing to me about trend stories is why editors and reporters feel the need to fabricate trends out of perfectly interesting bits of information. Part of it, I suppose, is the medium.
Reporters are dying to publish the equivalent of cocktail gossip, the “did-you-hear-about-X?” buzz, but it doesn’t fit the mission statements on their $40,000 Columbia School of Journalism Master’s Degrees. So they cobble those interesting bits and anecdotes into trend stories that vaguely resemble “news,” though they are generally not.
But aren’t the tidbits of information and anecdotes interesting enough on their own without the slathering of artificial context painted on by professionals?
Louis wrote:
Here’s a news flash, and this pertains to your previous post, the sole purpose of news to appease peoples love of sex, perversion, and all things scandalous. The stories contained therein are slightly better than fiction and the sole purpose is entertainment.
For more posts on journalistic integrity please see H.L. Mencken blog from 1930 when this issue was still relevant.
Posted on 04-Nov-07 at 7:27 pm | Permalink
dave wrote:
I blame editors who, at least as far as I’ve seen, are the ones demanding trend stories.
These are articles that allow middle-aged readers to talk about technology and fashion in digestible (inaccurate) nuggets.
I was just an otherwise good journalism conference where an otherwise good editor talked about what he said was a great example of a great trend story. Divorced young mothers are having sex with men in college because neither are looking for commitments.
He said the report talked to a few women and a few women and wrote and bold story about what was going on in the world today.
I guess trend stories are part of our societies tendency to look at things-happening-now as things-happening-FOR-THE-FIRST-TIME-EVER.
Trend stories are for and demanded by the same people who are shocked by binge drinking and outraged by profanity in music.
Jack Schafer at Slate has had some amazing critiques of trend stories, especially drug trend stories.
Posted on 05-Nov-07 at 2:00 am | Permalink
John wrote:
Agreed, Peter. Cell phones jammers are cool as hell. Couldn’t they just write a blurb that says: “Some people are fed up listening to others babble on cell phones and they bought these cell phone jammer things and guess what? They totally work! Haha, take that, babblers!”
Then maybe they could put some info at the bottom on where to get a jammer, cost, etc. Because I really want one.
Posted on 07-Nov-07 at 2:38 pm | Permalink
Pablo wrote:
Peter, I completely agree with you. Trend stories are the quintessential example of “journalism” at its worst. At the same time, I’ll still read them. I may be thinking “Right…. Two people do something and it becomes a trend?!?!”, but I’m still reading it. In the end, that’s all that matters.
Posted on 08-Nov-07 at 11:41 am | Permalink