Selective use of otherwise accurate information. Formulating a thesis first, then looking only for data to back the thesis. The 1996 series led to similar praise and similar criticism. Some publications declined to run a syndicated version and The Seattle Times yanked it in midstream. The term was apparently coined by Lou Ureneck, a Portland, Maine, newspaper editor who, during a public-policy debate earlier this decade about commercial fishing, commissioned his most talented investigative reporters to go beyond dueling experts.
Any new form is bound to ignite controversy.
That said, the criticism of Barlett and Steele's wk is off base. In those readings I have brought to bear everything I know about information-gathering and presentation. I have seen some of the evidence collected by Barlett and Steele and I have interviewed them. To say their view of the global economy is one-sided, though, would be drastically to understate their intellectual aphasia. The series is filled with anecdotes, but the anecdotes bring to life a statistical avalanche that Jenkins never refutes.