Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Best of the Web Today: If Data Were a Journalist - WSJ.com

Best of the Web Today: If Data Were a Journalist - WSJ.com: ""Vox.com joins a crowded field of data-driven news sites," USA Today reported earlier this month. Maybe "Data" should have been capitalized.

A pair of articles the site published yesterday, one on John Kerry's diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and one on ObamaCare, demonstrate a glaring deficiency in Vox's "explanatory" approach to journalism. Both reflect a determined detachment from reality--specifically, from the human element in human affairs.

Let's start in the Mideast with Max Fisher, author of the story titled "Does It Matter That John Kerry Compared Israel to Apartheid?" The answer to that question seems to be self-evidently yes, but Fisher wants to argue that it shouldn't matter. The whole kerfuffle, he insists, is a "distraction": "We're not debating . . . the substance of Kerry's points or the future of the Israel-Palestine conflict.""



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