Thread by @jeffjarvis

In this devastating review of "The Story Paradox," @TimothyDSnyder calls news deserts a crisis of American storytelling. This brings to mind my contention that journalists make the mistake of calling their work "stories" v. "articles." 1/
nytimes.com/2021/12/30/boo…

My journalistic problem with stories is related to my complaint yesterday about coverage of science. To tell a "story" is to need an alpha, an omega, and a neat arc in between. But science--hell, life--is a process without the neat endings journalism desires. 2/

I trust @TimothyDSnyder's judgment and so it's too bad the book is not an adequate examination of the presumptions, seductions, and perils of the story. I'd welcome that discussion. See, for example, les affaires Stephen Glass & Claas Relotius: 3/ medium.com/whither-news/t…

I don't condemn the story, only suggest we need be aware of how it affects journalism's form & mission. The earliest newsletters, avvisi, were bloodless chronicles in past tense, competing with the earliest newsbooks, which were heroic/tragic narratives. Journalism merged them.4/

What would process-based journalism look like? It might look more like education (which also uses stories) to impart information, skills, judgment, outcomes. Might journalism be Socratic dialogue? I don't know. I hope for experimentation of the possible. 5/

All this is why I'm teaching this course in a J-school: to get journalists to expand the canvas on which they do their work and imagine other means to meet our mission, beyond stories. 6/
medium.com/whither-news/s…

& all this is why I'm disappointed that @TimothyDSnyder reports this book is a Pinkeresque romp instead of an informed examination of the story as an institution in the context of the net, where people can tell their own. I wish for that book, that discussion. Recommendations? 7/

Relevant to all this, see my discussion of Alex Rosenberg's "How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories": 8/
medium.com/whither-news/a…