Re: Howdy from Barrett

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 7:36 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

There is also, off the top of my head, the sudden phenomenon of being in a position, even if one does not write professionally, of writing in such a way that either dozens, hundreds, or thousands will immediately see the result, which is to say there is (at least in some cases) almost immediate negative and positive feedback that comes to shape what one writes, and with what degree of attention or care. This matters less if one is a fool writing nonsense in front of other fools, as on some internet mediums, but of course we're talking about the circumstances by which the more thoughtful are in communication.

On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 4:34 AM, Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> wrote:
I had always believed that facility with the English sentence was acquired after extensive reading. The internet has caused a renaissance of text, whereas prior popular media favored spoken language. Before the internet I noticed that college-age students often had a range of words ready for use that was superior to my own in colorfulness and instinctive use of figures of speech, which I attributed to exposure to entertainment and street culture, but that the ability to manipulate the structure of sentences was less common.

One advantage that guys who are interested in sentences gained in the mid-90's is on-screen display with plenty of surrounding text for any sentence you may be writing, as well as ease of revision, relative to second drafts, correct-o-tape, [list of bizarre tools omitted] from the prior era. Sometime within the past month I was in a Google document at the same time that Mintz or yourself was writing something, and I was struck by how similar his composition process is to my own, lots of backing up, substituting, rearranging phrases, changing phrases to clauses. The point being that hyper-consciousness of sentence architecture is more likely in the online environment.

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 7:52 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Clark-

Those who choose to pursue the best options available today have, of course, vastly improved options in terms of the cultural constructs they choose to imbibe. And certain of those games have been shown to have distinctly positive effects on those who play them. Those of us who grew up exposed to them were confronted with a tremendous range of problem-solving activity in addition to a great deal of what our predecessors were exposed to as children. The effects of having gone through adolescence at this quick transition point aren't all positive by any means, but they are more dramatic than is commonly thought.

But there are quite a few other factors at play here, and my next book will deal with those. I've also been touching on them for Skeptical Inquirer, but my own thoughts are still sort of scattered and I haven't solved the problem yet.

Incidentally, I don't know if you ever have the opportunity to spend time around children, but if you do, ask them questions. To the extent that they have been exposed to the internet, you will find the answers unusual.

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 9:29 PM, Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com> wrote:
"you might create an editorial group that actually creates sound, snappy, science editorial" <------ well, there's a germ of an idea.

As I was assembling a mailing list today to invite to the blog I was struck that you have captured the interest of several dozen learned/literate-seeming people. In my later years at work I periodically had new lawyers for mentoring and I was amazed how well some of these kids write. How did that happen, MTV, video games and all? We may already have a pool of talent for something like he describes.

Clark
217 722-8680

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 7:12 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robert Luhn <luhn@ncse.com>
Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: Howdy from Barrett
To: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

Sir:

Thanks for the note. My knee (or elbow) - jerk reaction?

Improving science journalism is a laudable goal. But perhaps the bigger issue is a huge lack of <<any>> science journalism out there. In fact, I might suggest, instead of creating a technical reading service (because that's what you're really proposing), you might create an editorial group that actually creates sound, snappy, science editorial. But...I digress.

My thoughts:

--This idea presumes that newspapers, et al, run any kind of science news. And given current budgets, if they're running anything, it's from AP or Reuters. And that's about it. Science staffs at pubs, and on cable (like CNN) have been slashed. Who ends up covering science, if at all? the general assignment reporter, and yes, he needs help! But this gets us back to the core crux here...how many outlets, print or otherwise, are bothering to do much of any science coverage/reporting.

--Newspapers? Magazines? Ollld economy.

--Science pubs, et al....probably wouldn't need this service, since they would have onstaff experts in these realms. (Well, namely, the editors.)

--To make a service like this work, it would have to managed by someone with real, daily deadline, editorial experience. Scientists can dither like mad, or find every shade of gray in a topic. Meanwhile, the deadlines have gone whooshing by. This is esp. true with bloggers, where the turnaround times has to be fasssst. So..supplying tech reads? A noble idea. Question is, can it be timely enough?

--Who else has done this? Well, a number of editorial consultants and content services, in a sense. I've done it for tech pubs off and on for years. What you're really conjuring here is something akin to The Science & Entertainment Exchange (http://www.scienceandentertainmentexchange.org).. Have you talked to these folks?

--Could I pass this along to journos and such? Sure. But I'd recommend you tighten the pitch on this...it's pretty convoluted. More to the point, I think you should hold a powwow (hell...via WebEx) with a handful of knowledgeable science and tech writers and really beat up this premise...to see how the idea can be honed, to figure out incentives for the media, and to really figure out how aspects of media reform we're realllly talking about. there are lots of media reformers out there and no one listens to them unless they come from CIR or Mother Jones or a handful of others.(Speaking of which, have you read Cory Dean's book)?

Let's talk.

r

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302