One thing I do enjoy are long form podcasts, because I can listen to them on the train or on long drives.
I couldn't agree more. I find wikipedia to be the most terse and to the point way of consuming information (that is still accessible for me as a non-scientist). It's not always as current as I'd like but it's better than this. It would be nice if journalism could go back to being journalism.
Actually, the New York Times is particularly bad about this - not only about gratuitous background but also about gratuitous attribution ... very common to see an inch of column preceded by over an inch of attribution of a quote or whatever.
I also find it very distracting and difficult to read.
If you're interested, the Financial Times is the opposite - very concise, very pointed and even restricts front page stories to only their front page space. You can read more deeper in the issue, but the front page item is a self contained story with no page jumps.
Give the facts up front. Lay out the situation. Root the people and the individuals in an important context. Then - maybe - we'll be interested in their lives.
News stories are often exhausting to read now, they require filtering out hypersensationalism and identifying what's fluff and what's not.
I personally wish more news was written like copy, and followed style guides focused on making information easy to find and consume.
To make a case for this particular instance, as others have mentioned, this is a magazine article, not a newspaper article, or a scientific publication. The article isn't _just_ about bug population in decline. There are a number of major and minor themes woven throughout. I feel like the narrative frame works to support that.
Additionally, as another commenter noted, this is a magazine article, not a news story. The format is intentionally different.
That said, I think I've noticed the elements that you complain about in more traditional news stories as well. I just think that they're more acceptable in this format.
On the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests for many people telling an emotional story about someone they can emphasize with is the most effective way to change their opinion, and as such necessary for that audience.
When and why is this a thing? And why isn’t it more compelling or dense?
I've been complaining about this for a while. I can't stand it. And thank you for giving it that name, I was looking for something to call it.
It might be because it's harder for me to remember things as I get older, but if I learn something with additional context, it's more likely to stick.
from the article:
> For some scientists, the study created a moment of reckoning. “Scientists thought this data was too boring,” Dunn says. “But these people found it beautiful, and they loved it. They were the ones paying attention to Earth for all the rest of us.” [..] Amateurs have long provided much of the patchy knowledge we have about nature. Those bee and butterfly studies? Most depend on mass mobilizations of volunteers willing to walk transects and count insects, every two weeks or every year, year after year. [..] The Krefeld society is volunteer-run, and many members have other jobs in unrelated fields
They don't have anything pre-packaged, it's not so easy, your criticism of the article may be valid but overall your demands are unreasonable.
They are raising an alarm for people to do something. If people don't want to hear what the alarm is about because they want the thing that they need to help with to be already done for them we are in trouble. Don't just say what you want to read, ask yourself what you could write, maybe. Make the executive summary you want to see in the world, right?
As for the possible consequences and remedies:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/03/stop-bio...
> The world must thrash out a new deal for nature in the next two years or humanity could be the first species to document our own extinction, warns the United Nation’s biodiversity chief.
> Ahead of a key international conference to discuss the collapse of ecosystems, Cristiana Pașca Palmer said people in all countries need to put pressure on their governments to draw up ambitious global targets by 2020 to protect the insects, birds, plants and mammals that are vital for global food production, clean water and carbon sequestration.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07183-6
> Numerous studies are revealing that Earth’s remaining wilderness areas are increasingly important buffers against the effects of climate change and other human impacts. But, so far, the contribution of intact ecosystems has not been an explicit target in any international policy framework, such as the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity or the Paris climate agreement.
> This must change if we are to prevent Earth’s intact ecosystems from disappearing completely.
Another commenter posted this:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/am...
> A new study finds that frogs, toads, salamanders and other amphibians in the U.S. are dying off so quickly that they could disappear from half of their habitats in the next 20 years. For some of the more endangered species, they could lose half of their habitats in as little as six years.
I'm no scientist, but I wouldn't be completely shocked by a connection between that and insect decline.
There's nothing wrong with that of course, just different modes. It's kind of akin to the difference between reading fiction and non-fiction. Some people just don't like reading fiction and vice-versa.
I like a slow, personable, factual, article like this. I get really bored if I read too many scientific journals, and this helps me actually relate to the data as a person.
It's supposed to be a great progress in journalism to put people first and make stories relatable, but it's gone too far -- and it always sound the same.
Bugs population is in sharp decline, here are the numbers, here are what scientists think are the causes, and the possible consequences, and the possible remedies -- is what I want to read.
Sorry for the rant.