My Wall Street Journal story

I was talking with someone the other day about the book by that Yale law professor who called her kids “garbage” and didn’t let them go to the bathroom when they were studying piano . . . apparently it wasn’t so bad as all that, she was misrepresented by the Wall Street Journal excerpt:

“I was very surprised,” she says. “The Journal basically strung together the most controversial sections of the book. And I had no idea they’d put that kind of a title on it. . . . “And while it’s ultimately my responsibility — my strict Chinese mom told me ‘never blame other people for your problems!’ — the one-sided nature of the excerpt has really led to some major misconceptions about what the book says, and about what I really believe.”

I don’t completely follow her reasoning here: just because, many years ago, her mother told her a slogan about not blaming other people, therefore she can say, “it’s ultimately my responsibility”? You can see the illogic of this by flipping it around. What if her mother had told her that nothing is really your fault, everything you do is a product of what came before you, etc.? Then would she be able to say that that WSJ article is not her responsibility?

But I digress.

What I really want to say here is that I find completely plausible the claim that the Wall Street Journal sensationalized her book. I say this based on an experience I had last year.

My story

I’ve always thought of the WSJ as a completely sobersided newspaper, duller than dull. Front page news is a 1/8%-change in the discount rate, or whatever. Sure, everybody knows they have a wacky editorial page that’s probably still obsessing over the connection between Vince Foster’s murder and the disappearance of the gold standard, but the rest of the paper is the straightest of straight news, right? And every once in awhile I’ve been contacted by WSJ reporters and they seem interested in getting things right.

Anyway, about six months ago I received the following email from a Wall Street Journal editor:

I read your post on college admissions a while back – proposals to level the playing field by deducting points for various things, like SAT prep.

Do you think you might be able to do a piece on that – at around 1,800 words – possibly to run in the Saturday Wall Street Journal? We could pay $1 a word. (If possible, we’d be looking for something by Wednesday.)

I didn’t really need the $1 a word, but of course I leapt at the opportunity to reach an audience that is much larger than this feeble little blog.

But . . . I don’t know much about college admissions! And I didn’t want to be like John Yoo and just write false stuff. (As I discussed previously, John Yoo’s reputation is so far gone that he has nothing to lose by making silly mistakes in a national newspaper, but, as an active researcher, I’d like to avoid this sort of thing. I’m still recovering from that false theorem I published nearly twenty years ago!)

So I responded to the WSJ editor:

I’ll give a try, probably with a coauthor.

To which I was told,

We don’t really do co-authored pieces in our section. If you need to wait until next week, that’s fine.

So I said yes. And I wrote something, running it by several actual experts and altering it until it seemed completely reasonable. And I sent it in. And I didn’t hear from them. I bugged them a couple times and they put me off, finally they said they wouldn’t run it.

I did get $450 as a kill fee, though, which was cool–I’d never received a kill fee before.

Anyway, I asked some people what could’ve happened. It seemed strange to me–after all, it’s not like I was shopping this piece around. They came to me, so why ask for something and then not follow through? (In my other dealings with newspapers, when they’ve asked for something and not liked what I’ve given, they’ll work with me to fix it.)

I doubt I’ll ever know what happened, but one of my colleagues suggested that the WSJ was looking for something more sensational. My original blog on college admissions was a shoot-from-the-hip kind of thing (check out the long comment thread), whereas the article I sent to the Journal was much more reasonable in tone (while being very similar in substance).

The WSJ and I have different goals. They want to run controversial pieces that get talked about (possibly by offending people). And I want . . . well, I like being talked about too, but I don’t want to say things that are stupid or false. I can spew out my speculations hen writing on this blog to readers who know where I’m coming from, but when going for a wider audience, I want to be more careful so I’m not misunderstood.

It was a frustrating experience but I don’t hold it against the Journal: if they’re not above a bit of sensationalism, that’s their choice. Or maybe they just found other items to fill their pages, which is fair enough. And I did get the $450.

12 thoughts on “My Wall Street Journal story

  1. Well… 450 dollars is better than nothing, but it probably would have been better for a variety of reasons if your article was published. Oh well… next time! :)

  2. I can't really understand not holding it against them– they weren't really open with you (if they had been, you wouldn't have been interested). So they took up a bunch of your time for $450 (is that really a good deal?).

    I guess you're more forgiving than me.

  3. I don't completely follow her reasoning here: just because, many years ago, her mother told her a slogan about not blaming other people, therefore she can say, "it's ultimately my responsibility"? You can see the illogic of this by flipping it around.

    I don't think she argues that her mother's slogan is justification for her claiming responsibility; it's just anecdotally related.

  4. Here's why I don't give Prof. Chau much slack. It's 2011. The Wall Street Journal distorts your book in their article. What would you do that morning?* Exactly. I think Prof. Chau is trying to play both sides of this, benefitting from controversy and trying to preserve her reputation by claiming victim of controversy.

    *You would (1) Give your side immediately on your blog. (2) Respond in the comments of high profile online blogs and articles that you were quoted out of context, providing links back to your blog.

  5. We're familiar with separating the editorial page from the rest of the paper. But I think we also have to separate "hard news" from "feature stories", just as they told me when I edited the high school paper [carved on stone tablets then].

    If you're the WSJ, you have to report on the latest FRB interest rate decision, no matter how dull. That's hard news.

    You don't HAVE to run a feature story. You only do so if it's interesting and attracts readers.

  6. The WSJ article did not include Chua's most outrageous story about how she refused a home-made birthday card from her 4-year-old because it was not good enough. So I don't think that it is true that the WSJ strung together the most controversial sections.

    The WSJ editor is probably just as puzzled as you. He wonders why you were unwilling to be as provocative in your op-ed as you were in your blog. (You explain it above, but not to him.)

  7. Roger:

    I don't quite know what happened with my WSJ article. My contact there never actually told me that it was not provocative enough, or that it needed editing, or whatever. He just kept putting me off and then told me they weren't going to run it.

  8. Is there any reason you can't publish it yourself? It would be interesting 1) to hear your opinion on the subject matter; and 2) to compare that with what you wrote on your blog.

  9. Pete:

    I'll do that but I'd like to publish it somewhere else first, to reach a different audience (since some places won't publish something that's already been posted).

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