In December 2002 I got irate but restrained myself. I wrote a few notes in my private wiki but never got around to cleaning them up for ZhurnalWiki exposure — or perhaps I came to my senses in time and self-preempted the rant?

This year I just can't take it any more! The New York Times, otherwise a great newspaper, shot itself in the (unmentionable) again with its Sunday magazine "Year in Ideas" theme issue (14 December 2003). How many trees died to perpetrate this flapdoodle? As a wanna-be thinking person, I am embarrassed to admit that I read it.

The problems with both 2002's and 2003's "Year in Ideas" are manifold — and, alas, the disease is shared (often in more virulent forms) by most major media coverage of new concepts. Among the worst sins that literate, well-meaning, but naive journalists have committed, time and again:

• gross technical errors — particularly in dealing with subjects that I know a wee bit about (e.g., mathematics, quantum mechanics, cosmology) ... so how can I trust the authors on other themes? (see the Feynman anecdote at the end of CollegeCollage3, 29 Sep 2001, re credulous press reporting on a technology to "create energy" by splitting water molecules and then burning the resultant hydrogen)
• exaggerated certainty — on topics where the unknowns are overwhelming (see UniversalKnowns, 13 Jun 2002)
• incestuous quote-meistering — trotting out old ponies from the standard stable of quasi-charismatic sound biters ... the same faces that we've seen every few weeks plugging their new books, their corporate initiatives, their laboratory proposals, etc. ... the same self-promoters who will in turn give good blurb back to a journalist-author when the time comes (see UsualSuspects, 15 Oct 2000)
• spotlighting the outsider — paying far too much attention to self-proclaimed mavericks who are, in fact, simply mistaken megalomaniacs

What's the right way to write about ideas in an annual popular forum? The real need is to identify news developments involving the best old notions, and not get swept away by transient novelty. To do that is tough work. It demands critical thought plus expert advice, and probably takes months of study. It also can't easily be turned into a big glossy magazine full of ads for expensive new products. Too bad ...

TopicThinking - TopicWriting - TopicHumor - TopicSociety - 2003-12-16

(correlates: TooManyMeetings, YearInIdeas2005, GoodBeyondHope, ...)