So, what do I read on the Internet when I have only 30 minutes of free time available? I read gossip blogs. I'm not proud.
That's how I know all about Jennifer Garner's one piece bathing suit. I also know about Kristen Stewart's shocking affair. (Apparently, it went on for months.) I'm trying to guess which A-list actress is being smothered by her boyfriend.
In writing gossip news, Jonah Lehrer just resigned from the New Yorker for making up Dylan quotes in his book. Is it too late to return the book to Barnes and Noble?
For those who didn't get enough of Daniel Craig in the Olympic Opener, check out the trailer for the next movie.
Apt. 11d 
Is Jonah Lehrer a big deal? I was trying to read a different article in Tablet and the site is down.
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I read gossip and enjoy it, but I think the number of pixels devoted to Kristen Stewart’s affair is about a gajillionty too many.
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Is Jonah Lehrer a big deal? I was trying to read a different article in Tablet and the site is down.
For us regular New Yorker readers, Johan Lehrer is a potential big deal, depending on whether this is an isolated incident or the first (really second) domino — I was a New Republic subscriber up through the Stephen Glass, and felt really duped thinking back on all of the “cool” stuff I had read that he wrote, and that he in fact had been making up.
I have that same sick feeling about Jonah Lehrer — his writing could sort of be categorized as “Lesser Malcolm Gladwell” or “Lesser Steven Levitt.” It’s like how you’d feel if you learned that those cool anecdotes from “The Tipping Point” or “Freakonomics” had all been made up. Except that there’s a big difference between fabricating quotes and making up examples.
Except he had already been dinged for self-plagiarism.
There’s probably a bigger issue here of how the financial decline of newspapers and magazines are leading more journalists to cut corners which make things like this more likely to recur, but I guess we can wait to have that conversation until we see how many more dominoes actually fall.
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I’m just a grumpy old lady who has had to fail too many students for plagiarism, but I sometimes wonder if plagiarism isn’t just a way of writing for a lot of people, one they started in HS or college and just never gave up because they got away with it for so long.
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The shot of Craig fixing his cufflinks at about 0:27 is awesome.
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“There’s probably a bigger issue here of how the financial decline of newspapers and magazines are leading more journalists to cut corners which make things like this more likely to recur.”
This is my worry. I think there are a number of professions that basically rely on an honor system for their very existence. The training (and I don’t know, was Lehrer a trained journalist) was supposed to teach ethics, but as the stakes get high, I think people will cut corners. Stakes get higher when the tournament gets stiffer and the ratio of winners to losers lower.
(I worry that academic science is entering that zone, too, where the honor that keeps scientists away from fraud is becoming too costly.
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“This is my worry. I think there are a number of professions that basically rely on an honor system for their very existence. The training (and I don’t know, was Lehrer a trained journalist) was supposed to teach ethics, but as the stakes get high, I think people will cut corners…”
On the other hand, what if journalists were getting away with murder before, and now is the first time they’re getting caught and punished?
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“It’s like how you’d feel if you learned that those cool anecdotes from “The Tipping Point” or “Freakonomics” had all been made up.”
I have some concerns about the economist in SuperFreakonomics who did research on the economics of prostitution and other illegal activity. None of the findings were implausible, but it strikes me as the sort of area where you could make up your data without leaving Starbucks and nobody would be the wiser.
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Prostitution is more of a Seattle’s Best thing.
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