The basic skills of our upper-end press!

FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2017

Do such skills exist: We feel completely sure that Nicole Lewis is a good decent person.

She's also part of the "Intern Class of 2017" at the Washington Post. On that basis, we wouldn't necessarily expect as much of her as we would of an experienced upper-end journalist.

Lewis written an interesting analysis piece for the Post. It appears beneath this provocative headline:

"Think millennials are woke? A new poll suggests some are still sleeping on racism."

We think the piece is larded with interesting analytical shortcomings. That said, we'd say the shortcomings land on the head of Lewis' editor more than on Lewis herself.

We expect to review that piece next week. That said, how weak are the analytical skills of our upper-end journalists?

Those skills often seem remarkably weak. Consider today's Here to Help feature, on the reimagined page A3 of the New York Times.

We found the piece quite puzzling. It appears beneath this headline:

Here to Help
HOW TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT WHEN FLYING

Reducing your carbon footprint when flying? That sounds like a good thing to do! That said, for better or worse, here's how the text begins:

Here to Help
HOW TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT WHEN FLYING

Take one round-trip flight between New York and California, and you've generated about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year. If you're flying, you're adding a significant amount of planet-warming gases to the atmosphere—there's no way around it. But there are some way as to make your airplane travel a bit greener:

Does that opening passage make sense? The problems seem to start rather quickly. Let's commence with this:

If you take a commercial flight from New York to California today, will you be adding a lot of planet-warming gases to the atmosphere? Assuming the plane was going to go whether you were on it or not, it seems to us that you aren't exactly adding any gases to the atmosphere at all.

Eventually, the feature seems to come to terms with this apparent fact, at least in a tiny way. In terms of carbon emissions, "it's certainly better to fly cross-country than to drive solo," the feature helpfully says.

Before long, though, we'll have to admit, Here to Help had us baffled. We found ourselves puzzled by this:

Fly coach
According to a study from the World Bank, the emissions associated with flying in business class are about three times as great as flying in coach, and a first-class seat could have a carbon footprint up to nine times as big as [sic] economy one.

Say what? "A first-class seat could have a carbon footprint up to nine times as big as [an] economy one?"

We have no idea what they're talking about. Nor did they bother explaining.

Of course, we could always fire the Google machine and peruse that World Bank study, which seems to be located here. But it seems to us that isn't the way a Here to Help feature should work.

That piece by Lewis is fascinating, in large part for what it doesn't notice about the data it reviews. More on that piece next week. But unless it's familiar script you seek, we're going to say that Lewis' editor did a very poor job.

For the record, Here to Help features exist in the hard-copy Times alone. This morning's carbon footprint confusion recommends no specific link in the on-line paper if you feel you need extra help.

We felt we needed a lot more help. But as with the prophets of old in the desert, no one was there to help us out, to hear our pitiful cries!