In the last few weeks, science writer Jonah Lehrer has been under fire in media circles for “self-plagiarism”. A number of investigators have discovered close similarities or identical wording in the texts of articles and speeches he’s written or delivered. However, there’s another aspect of the Lehrer situation that I find more concerning than the allegations of “self-plagiarism” – and that’s the alleged errors in his reporting about scientific research. (more…)
media
Crowdsourcing for Bands: Now How Much Would You Pay?
The Georgia Straight, a local weekly alternative paper, recently ran an opinion piece by Michael Mann about bands that use crowdsourcing to raise money to subsidize tours or records. The title might give you a clue as to its perspective: “Boo hoo, broke bands, quit asking for charity“. The story generated 425 comments, most of them extremely negative – not too surprising when the article contained statements like this: (more…)
“The Word” Is Closing: Bad News for Good Writing
Despite all the labour relations events over the past week, the news that made the biggest impact on me was the announcement by the British music magazine The Word that it would be ceasing publication with its August issue.
I’ve bought and read music magazines for as long as I can remember – and among my biggest thrills as a writer was having letters to the editor published in the New Musical Express and in Creem. So I believe that I have the reader experience to say that The Word, over its nine years of existence, was consistently one of the smartest and best written music magazines ever. And when I say “smart”, I don’t mean snarky – I mean intelligent, well-informed, thoughtful and passionate. (more…)
Is Twitter Killing Discussion at Conferences?: Notes from the Field
In my work world right around now, the regular academic year winds up and the rush toward convocation begins. And it’s also the start of conference season. The hard work of getting to conferences started long ago – early January is usually the deadline for submitting papers to summertime conferences. But now it’s time to agonize over your Powerpoints, jump on the plane, and stand up in front of your peers and talk about your research. (more…)
Thinking about Success: A Perspective from Skating
It’s been my pleasure over the last couple of months to transcribe interview highlights for the Manleywoman Skatecast, a free podcast created by my fellow adult skater Allison Manley. Allison undertook this venture five years ago out of frustration with “fluffy” coverage of figure skating that focused on “what Johnny Weir ate last week, or what shoes Michelle Kwan is wearing”. To date Allison has interviewed more than 50 people associated with figure skating – and, proudly, has done so only with funding from listener donations. (more…)
No, Really, Are You Happy?: How the Media Misreports Workplace Research
A couple of days ago, while driving around, I heard a news item on a couple of local radio stations saying that fewer than half of all workers are satisfied with their jobs, but were unwilling to look for something else. This caught my ear because something I learned really quickly when I started doing job satisfaction research is that it’s very difficult to measure job satisfaction accurately, and it’s even more difficult to make broad generalizations about it. (more…)
All About Work 