fbardier

If you’ve never heard about FiveThirtyEight (from now on FTE) you are in for a treat. That is if politics and polling are right up your alley. Nate Silver is a skilled statistician and editor in chief of FTE. The site provides analysis that’s heavily reliant on statistics provided by outside pollers as well as statistical analysis models developed by SIlver himself. Sports and Politics are the center of attention of FTE, and their models have proven to be very successful (last election results notwithstanding). The story in question is titled “Can a Democrat Really Win a Senate Race in Tennessee? Or Mississippi?!?! Analysis based on hard data of this specificity is hard to question. It requires a significant knowledge and a proficiency in the statistical field that makes it hard for the journalist writing the piece to veer away from what would be considered true or to make false statements. This very same level of specificity is responsible for what it would be considered a loyalty...

It’s Wednesday at 10:00 am. I walk into a dark, half full theatre. Twenty drums are arranged in a semicircle while a man wearing a white shirt and a fedora is loquaciously talking about “Bomba”, the traditional drum rhythm from the island of Puerto Rico. The man in the fedora is José “Dr. Drum” Ortiz, a co-founder and Musical Director of BombaYo Afro-Puerto Rican Arts’ Project, the keynote speaker at the “Playing Bomba Together: A Latin Percussion Workshop with 50 Bomba Drums” event. “Drumming is like a workout for the mind”, he says, while he explains the technique associated with Yubá, one of the rhythmic styles most prominent in Bomba. The seats behind the drums are occupied by students and faculty alike. They try to reproduce the rhythm that Dr. Bomba just demonstrated. Nuyan Haque, a student in the audience, tells me that Dr. Drum has been explaining the historical importance of Bomba for Puerto Rico. “He’s doing a great job tying it up with the cultural relevance that it has ...

Feature stories share a number of characteristics. Defined in part by what they are not, it could be said that an absence of urgency is what sets them apart from breaking news. In June’s issue of The Bridge, there’s a feature story titled “Ambar Castillo: A Vivacious LaGuardia Student and a Fulbright Scholar”. This is a story that checks almost every box of the feature story characteristics list. Right off the bat, after a soft lead, we are presented with an anecdote, a little story of how the interviewer met with the interviewee. There’s an abundance of details in the anecdote that falls in line with what’s typical of this type of story. “ I was already inside the office waiting for her when I heard some knocks. Through the glass window of the door, I saw her beaming and enthusiastically waving at me—I opened it, and in an instant, she gave me a welcoming hug, all while carrying with her an enormous backpack that probably weighed more than she”. There’s a clear sense of organiza...

The notion that journalism is a public service is not widely spread among society. Most journalists might certainly understand it that way, but in recent times it’s been more than clear that the public doesn’t completely trust in the capabilities or rather, the motivation, of the Fourth Estate to exercise as a watchdog of government. Certainly, this lack of trust has hindered the ability of the media to exercise as checks and balances with the three branches of government. It’s very hard to demand accountability when the public trust doesn’t back the effort. The first chapter of News Matters is a powerful reminder of the responsibilities of the media, as well as the consequences of both good journalism and bad journalism. It’s a good reminder that when exercised correctly, journalism can impact the lives of the community it serves in a highly positive manner. Corrupt officials and the party structures that sustain them can be brought down with methodic and responsible use of good j...

Michiko Kakutani is something of a mini-celebrity amongst New York Times subscribers and avid book readers from this city. Some would argue that she has reached Roger Ebert fame status. For three decades, her name was infamous amongst well-established writers, as well as revered by most novice authors. This week, Vulture (a pop culture online magazine run by New York Magazine), publishes a short feature piece on the retired critic who has recently published a book of her own. It portrays a familiar picture of an old school new yorker that has chosen to remain in some sort of limbo between anonymity and recognition. Since this is not a hard news story, it doesn’t need to follow the rather strict inverted pyramid structure required in those cases. The who, when and why are scattered across the article and it’s our job to find them. It starts with a seemingly trivial scene. Kakutani and the journalist are trying to find a Rolling Stones album. We learn a little bit about the subject...

There’s a thing about journalism that sometimes works as a double-edged sword. There are multiple definitions and ways to understand it. It can be broad or incredibly narrow in scope and nuance. And oftentimes it’s misunderstood for something else. Or something else gets classified as journalism when it’s not. The objective of The Elements of Journalism is to help the reader get closer to the mission and the purpose of journalism, while helping journalists to find the element of service that seems to be forgotten or left behind at times. One of the main underlying themes in the first chapter of the book is the question of how can journalism adapt to the new technologies available without renouncing to the core mission of providing the information that the public needs to make informed decisions about their life. One of the most consequential decisions of public life is casting a vote, and an informed electorate is vital for the good health of a democracy. “The primary purpose of jo...

The first piece is a hard news article. Foreign and domestic policy are the two hot topics of the moment. It also happens to be an intersection of two interests of mine. The article in point is a piece of hard news that could be categorized as breaking. It’s very important information, but it’s not extremely urgent in nature. The story was filed from Washington D.C by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, therefore byline and dateline are present. In this case, government action is the topic at hand, which can also be identified as the beat. More information would be necessary to know if this is the journalist’s particular beat, but it would be safe to assume it is. A publication like the times assigns journalists to specific areas of coverage to journalists that are, in general, seasoned in what they are covering. Being the New York Times, the article follows a series of journalistic standards that preclude the writer from incurring in some obvious improper editorializing. Hard facts, properly bac...