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A rather limited study by neuroscientist Dr. Tara Swart of brain patterns in 40 volunteer journalist subjects seems to show a prevalence of lack of emotional self-control, as well as lower than average problem-solving skills, among other deficiencies. High blood levels of cortisol were significant.
The headline conclusion reached is that journalists are undoubtedly subject to a range of pressures at work and home, but the meaning and purpose they attribute to their work contributes to helping them remain mentally resilient despite this. Nevertheless, there are areas for improvement, including drinking more water and reducing alcohol and caffeine consumption to increase executive functioning and improve recovery during sleep.
[...] As a group, the journalists also exhibited lower executive functioning scores than the average person, indicating a lower than average ability to regulate emotions, suppress biases, solve complex problems, switch between tasks, and think flexibly and creatively. It is likely that the levels of caffeine/alcohol and the lack of water consumed contributed to the low scores recorded for executive functioning because of the severe impact of dehydration on cognitive ability.
Read the study here: TaraSwart.com [PDF]
[ n1: This is not a peer reviewed study. It was launched in association with the London Press Club, and the objective was to determine how journalists can thrive under stress. Tara Swart is a Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, she holds a BsC in Biomedical Science and PhD in Neuropharmacology from Kings College London, and a BM BcH in Medicine from Oxford University. ]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by idiot_king on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:34AM (17 children)
I've seen this a few places over the past few days.
I find it highly suspicious that this *LIMITED* study is surfacing amidst the outcry against Trump simply because it's too convenient.
The average 'Publican Ruralite hates the media-- so the very fact that they have this low hanging fruit to grab will certainly feed that.
This is a time, now more than ever, the media needs to be as reactive as possible because there is danger at the helm of this ship-- and it would be foolish to hinder the first defense against tyranny, The Press.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:42AM
It's going by the plan. Just look at who owns media..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:44AM (12 children)
You mean like the 'studies' every month or so 'proving' conservatives are mentally defective? Thought you would always have a monopoly on #FakeScience?
Don't really need a study to know journalists as a groups are on the left side of the bell curve when it comes to reasoning, general knowledge and such when we can look at the work product and see it clearly. What makes pathetic is they are so convinced they are on a Holy mission to save the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:02AM
Look up the paper where they "proved" people identifying as republicans tended to be insane/stupid which lead to a bunch of media coverage and citations. Then later it was admitted they reversed the democrat/republican label in their dataset (ie: 0= rep, 1=dem vs 1 = rep, 0 = dem). It is all bs, there is no difference between the two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:10AM
Who says that it's not possible that conservatives and journalists are mentally defective?
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:40AM
You mean like the 'studies' every month or so 'proving' conservatives are mentally defective?
Who needs studies to prove this, when we got a "jmorris"! Res ipsa loquitur.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:47AM (6 children)
Crap. Talk about junk science and collected bullshit.
...limited study...
I'll say, 21 journalists. That is a sufficient sampling to draw any conclusion? I'm pretty sure I can go to any city with a top 20 college football team and get 100% agreement that they should have been in the playoffs.
It is likely that the levels of caffeine/alcohol and the lack of water consumed contributed to the low scores recorded for executive functIon
One doesnt have to be a neuroscientist to know this. This claim is that it is disproportionate in journalists? No comparison.
FTA
Leading Sustainable Performance designed by Dr Tara Swart which she ordinarily runs with leadership teams in banks and large corporates.
In other words this is a white paper or commercial for her practice.
If you have not been on the planet long enough to know, people don't go into journalism because they found physics and calculus to easy. You will find creative/emotional types more likely in journalism. Are you shocked by that?
Do you just pull this balogna out of your ass? I check news and slashdot every day. I guess I missed the monthly research reported on the mental defective conservatives. I would have no problem if someone suggested that the belief in an all powerful god who created and controls the universe was evidence that a large segment of the conservatives lacked basic logic and reasoning capabilities.
Finally, journalists are on a holy mission to save the world? Where did yo get that horseshit? This is a classic example of claiming the enemy is doing exactly what you are doing.
(Score: 2) by https on Sunday May 21 2017, @03:54AM (4 children)
You're spilling elitist nonsense.
Trying to paint physics/calculus as a "only the best get here" field is bullshit. A different set of skills are required. Maybe the average NYT reporter couldn't integrate ex without Wolfram, but the average mathematician couldn't tell a passive construct from a "dagling" participle - and they'll have spellcheck turned off because of all the abbreviations and jargon.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:50AM
It isn't true that the average mathematician couldn't tell a passive construct from a "dagling" participle. Mathematicians do better than journalists. Grammar is about precise logic, which is exactly what mathematicians are good at. They kick ass.
If "they'll have spellcheck turned off", oh well. They are less likely to need it.
You could make a legit complaint about obscure humor, being unable to evoke emotions as intended, or accidentally offending people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:34AM
It is "only the best get here" field partly because it has so little employment opportunities and partly because it's fucking hard. I guess it was too hard for you, else you wouldn't feel the need to make yourself feel better by denigrating your intellectual superiors.
Yes, the two fields require different skills, but the skills required to be good at mathematics require far greater problem solving ability and a lot more work towards competence. Anyone with a YouTube channel can do journalism well, although obviously not as effectively and skillfully as someone with a long career in the field and proper work ethics. When it comes to mathematics on the other hand, you are just taking your baby steps until you finish your masters degree.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:34PM (1 child)
It was just an example. I couldn't list every single field of study now could I? Any high school kid who paid attention can write complete sentences, spell, and knows what a split infinitive is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:39PM
My native language doesn't have such a thing as an infinitive form you insensitive clod.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:27AM
No, but it is sufficient sample size to establish a possible trend. Certainly I wouldn't suggest to draw any policy from it, such studies are more of a "oh cool, we should definitely look more into it" kind of thing.
In this case, you are cherrypicking your samples. Please cite the relevant parts of the methodology of the study which you think demonstrate cherrypicking or provide counter-example studies which are better researched/sourced.
On a slight tangent, if you are going the violate the charity principle like that then you aren't going to convince anyone except those who are already predisposed to your position. Unless your intention was to preach to the SJW choir for free karma, I would suggest trying different tactics.
Journalism is no science, but when properly done it is a rigorous and methodological process. A good journalist is more akin to the protagonist of a detective novel than to a wacky Hollywood artist. If the majority of your journalists are liberal arts majors... well that's something we should all be concerned about.
Well, you have a massive selection bias right there. Are you are journalist by any chance. /snark
Try Salon [google.com]. There is certainly an endless slew of "conseratives are $BAD" articles to be found among the leftist trash media. And no, I'm not saying the other side doesn't do it, don't give me any of that partisan bullshit.
Funny you should say that. I wasn't able to find any such studies, but according to at least one study, conservatives tend to be more emotionally stable than liberals [wikipedia.org]:
I know, I know, it's Wikipedia but the cited paper stands up quite nicely to scrutiny.
It's bias on your part, that much I can guarantee. It's not that the right doesn't have their fair share of ideological crusaders but they tend towards a more cold-blooded form of disingenuous journalism. Leftist writers on the other hand will haply take a running jump off the slippery sloop with alarming frequency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @03:13AM (1 child)
Maybe not the journalists themselves, but their owners perhaps?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 21 2017, @03:59AM
The owners may profit and set the agenda, but they don't do all the legwork journalists have to do -- deal with people, which often means getting drunk with them to loosen the sources up so they'll offer information or some context off the record which could provide more information for a scoop or more leads. And, the journalists aren't the only ones getting wasted -- It's called the "D.C. Cocktail Circuit" for a reason.
But there are reasons why journalists may drink more than professional basket-weavers and kitten-breeders -- because they see firsthand how fucked up and crooked the world really is, and that the people who makes the rules are living in warped forms of non-reality, yet they shape reality for us normal folks.
That doesn't count journalists like Assange who probably can't drink (publicly at least) or CIA plants like Anderson Cooper who are basically plastic automatons.
(Score: 4, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:56AM (2 children)
The summary says that there were "40 volunteer journalist subjects" and indeed that's how many were chosen for the study; however it seems that data were reported for only 31 and of those, only 21 were fully studied:
40 journalists were selected on a first come first served basis, from across newspaper & magazine, broadcast and online. Ultimately, failure to complete all the elements in the required time limit meant that a total of 21 participants completed every element, and a further 10 completed some elements of the study.
(Score: 4, Funny) by deimtee on Sunday May 21 2017, @02:29AM (1 child)
See how bad they are, 19 out of 40 couldn't even finish the tests.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:54AM
"In the required time limit," it says. Clearly journalists have trouble finishing tasks on a deadline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:35AM (1 child)
Junk science is junk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @03:33AM
Translation: "I don't like the results so it doesn't count!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:39AM (1 child)
I just drank a quart of water! My executive functioning is CRUSHING IT!!1!
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:58AM
What about exercise? Do you lift?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:48AM (4 children)
Fuck this site.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:57AM
Put down the beer, you traditional journalist.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:58AM (1 child)
And your motivation for that is?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:38AM
Infophilia perhaps? Or perhaps GP is an infophobe with a fetish for rough sex.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:09AM
No foreplay? First you grab the site by the pussy, and the site lets you!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Snotnose on Sunday May 21 2017, @12:58AM (13 children)
I find gun control to be the biggest identifier of liberal journalists, even ahead of abortion. Phrases like "automatic rifle", "assault rifle", "AK-47" and such typically mean the person reporting doesn't know squat about guns but they are against them. Especially when they talk about an "automatic pistol", and other squeamish hi-ranking and reality low-ranking phrases.
Google "journalists guide to guns" if you think I'm kidding, that humorous chart sums out 90% of journalist's knowledge of guns.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:17AM (12 children)
I don't know much about guns. The first result when I searched was:
http://forums.gunsandammo.com/showthread.php?5589-News-journalists-guide-to-guns [gunsandammo.com]
If I understand that image, it doesn't imply that the AK-47 doesn't exist, only that journalists may misidentify it. Would you have them write "Kalashnikov rifle" instead? Perhaps if journalists weren't drinking so heavily they'd be smarter (as this study shows), less liberal, and learn the difference between an AK-47 and an AK-74!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47 [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-74 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:27AM
https://crzysdrs.sytes.net/dv//victim/48/papa-papa-they-took-away-my-ak-/ [sytes.net]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:34AM (2 children)
I bet they numbered it like that so they could alternate between quoting/purchase requisitioning/purchase ordering/invoicing for one vs the other, and by the time all was said and done, you'd paid for twice your original order.
(Score: 2, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @02:01AM (1 child)
I learned that the numbering of those models coincides with the year of first production: AK-47s were first made in 1947 and AK-74s were first made in 1974--but not all models follow that pattern.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @03:44AM
I always preferred the AK-747, but now I hear that Boeing is not even making them anymore.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:49AM (2 children)
That's exactly my point. "Journalists" typically call any rifle an AK-47, leveraging the guns ISIS and Al Queda use , along with hundreds of other types militias use.
9 times out of 10 it's either A) an SKS variant (AK single shot), or B) nothing to do with an AK-47.
You want my respect. Go to the gun range. Make friends. Shoot different types of guns. Get lucky, shoot some truly automatic weapons. Reflect that in your reporting.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Sunday May 21 2017, @02:14AM
Thanks for explaining. When we're familiar with a topic or story, we can easily notice inaccurate reporting about it. That could be further generalised to our observations of other people's work. We're not all excellent.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @02:52AM
Why would anyone want to do this?
Darn ammosexuals! Always going off half-cocked, and looking for multiple orgasms.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday May 22 2017, @12:58AM (4 children)
No. AK-47 has an emotional resonance, it's what ISIS and all the other Bad Guys Out There use. If you have an AK-47 you are a Bad Guy. Most people don't know what an SKS is, even though 99.99% of the AK variants sold in the USA are SkS versions.
The difference? AK-47 is fully automatic and a bitch to own. SKS is single shot, and available for $300.
Any journalist that wasn't inclined to think "guns bad, ooga ooga" are going to call an SKS an AK. They will also emphasize the bad guy was firing an automatic rifle, when 99.99% of the time he was firing a semi-automatic rifle. The difference? With an AK hold the trigger back, the gun keeps shooting. With an SKS you have to pull the trigger for every shot. AK-47 cyclic rate is 600 rounds/minute, with a 30 round clip. So figure a couple of seconds before reloading. SKS? I can get off 2-3 shots per second, much lower cyclical rate
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 22 2017, @02:13AM (2 children)
> [...] 99.99% of the AK variants sold in the USA are SkS versions.
A Web site that seems to be intended for U.S. gun enthusiasts contradicts you:
-- https://www.outdoorhub.com/stories/2015/04/28/ak-vs-sks-which-should-you-buy-why/ [outdoorhub.com]
A commenter responding to the article wrote that "[...] most [gun buyers] cannot get a fully automatic AK. Also, if you took both guns empty, no stripper or banana clips loaded, the SKS can put 100 rounds down range faster." I'm assuming the commenter was writing for a U.S. audience too.
The AK-47 is more popular in the world as a whole:
-- http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/266561468141574815/pdf/wps4202.pdf [worldbank.org]
> With an SKS you have to pull the trigger for every shot.
I had gathered as much.
> [...] I can get off 2-3 shots per second [with an SKS]
...whereas 600 rounds per minute works out to 10 per second. I see that there can be a difference, but I question its significance. Are you thinking of a specific shooting in which the rate of fire was important to understanding the story, but was misreported?
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Monday May 22 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)
Sigh. I'm not even going to go there. You are really saying thousands of people a year are buying fully automatic weapons? More than the number of people buying semi-automatic weapons? Not to mention I'm guessing a full auto AK is $1k+, while an SKS is $300. Not even gonna visit the website you mention, it's so far fetched I can't even.
Yeah, guy with the SKS can put 30 rounds down-range in 3 seconds pulling the trigger 10 times/second, as opposed to the AK guy, who just holds the trigger back. You need to put the beer down and think about what you're saying.
No shit Sherlock. It's reliable, it's cheap ($300 for a fully auto version outside the US), and never needs cleaning. What does that have to do with the availability of them in the US? Unless you're saying it's just as easy to get an AK in Chicago as it is in Istanbul.
To be honest, I'd rather be shot at with a gang-banger with a fully auto AK than anyone else with an SKS. Why? Gang banger runs out of ammo in 2-3 seconds, I can use that time to find him in my sights and shoot him several times. Dude with an SKS? We're in a strategic situation I hope to never find myself in.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 22 2017, @03:14AM
> You are really saying thousands of people a year are buying fully automatic weapons?
No, you're inacccurately conflating "AK-47" with "fully automatic weapon." I quoted a U.S. Web page which says that accessories for the AK-47 are more popular (there, I presume) than those for the SKS. I also quoted a commenter there who seemed to be saying that the AK-47s sold in the U.S. are typically not fully automatic.
> Not to mention I'm guessing a full auto AK is $1k+ [...]
You seem to understand that an AK-47 need not be fully automatic, else you wouldn't have used "full auto" as a qualifier. You seem reluctant to acknowledge that a semi-automatic AK-47 exists. Yet you fault journalists for being confused or ignorant.
> Not even gonna visit the website you mention, it's so far fetched I can't even.
That was easy.
> What does that have to do with the availability of them in the US? Unless you're saying it's just as easy to get an AK in Chicago as it is in Istanbul.
What does the availability of AK-47s in the U.S. have to do with the ability of British journalists to deal with stress?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 22 2017, @03:31AM
Snotnose gun expert?
No, it is an automatic "assault" rifle. If you cannot use terminology correctly, you can hardly dismiss others who do the same. "Single shot" is a non-reloading firearm, not even by any mechanism. Each round has to be manually fed into a chamber. Do try to "know your guns" on SoylentNews! We have a reputation as ammosexual loonies that we need to work to uphold. Misusing "single shot" for "semi-auto" is probably worse than using "auto" as an abbreviation for the same thing.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Bobs on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:24AM (2 children)
There is nothing of significance e that can be learned from this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:29AM
No control group either.
(Score: 2) by Bobs on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:35AM
I got marked as a troll above for saying this study has no statistical significance.
Let me explain, no let me sum up:
Among other problems, with only 21 self-selecting people in the study, you can get compelling results like;
- Journalists have an average of 1.857 testicles!
- 100% of journalist think Rupert Murdoch is a great boss!
- 100% of journalists are red-heads.
- 95.23% of journalists graduated high school in the 1990's.
- Almost all Journalists go bra-less.
- Journalists have higher levels of estrogen than the general population.
- 100% of journalists watched an episode of Dr Who within the last 72-hours.
- 100% of journalists use smartphones running IOS 10.3.7.
With such a small, self-selected set you can easily come up with answers for the 'team'
that don't apply to the larger group of 'all' journalists.
The error bars are huge on this.
And, if you try to reproduce the results with another set of 21 journalists, odds are you will come up with a different collection of outcomes for that small sample.
So no reproducibility.
This doesn't qualify as science / scientific.
There are a number of other, more jargon filled problems with this but I have already spent more time thinking about this study than the author.
'There are three degrees of lying:
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. "
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday May 21 2017, @01:31AM (1 child)
There's a 'services' link. I don't think this is a (peer-reviewed) journal article, and I don't think this is actual scientific research (by research standards).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @02:24AM
It's not science. It's somebody's little pet project. But it has pretty multicolored graphs. So it looks like science.