Tuesday, October 6, 2009

A visual representation of C&EN's letters on the UCLA/ Sheri Sangji case

Letters reacting to Jyllian Kemsley's article on the UCLA tragedy of research assistant Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji have been posted on C&EN Online. (I really appreciate the fact that C&EN has posted more letters online than they were able to print. Way to go, guys.) More on the letters substantively, later.

Here is a Wordle word cloud representation of all the words used by the correspondents in C&EN:



Here is a word cloud of all the words I've used to talk about the Sangji case:


What's the difference? Not much, really, except for one word: Harran.

UPDATE: C&EN Editor-in-Chief Rudy Baum comments below: "C&EN ran ALL of the letters it received on Jyllian Kemsley's coverage of the accident at UCLA, either in print or online. Harran's name is not prominent in the word cloud because almost none of the letters mentioned him."

In the comments below, I stated my opinion that the lack of Harran's name in the letters was a choice on the part of the editors. My opinion was clearly not correct. Apologies to C&EN and the editorial staff.

8 comments:

  1. I disagree, to me the first most visible thing is that C&EN cared much more about safety than about what happened to that poor girl. I mean I can't even see "Sheri" in their cloud.

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  2. A10:07: Please note, the top Wordle is from the *letters* about Ms. Sangji that C&EN received in reaction, not C&EN's articles.

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  3. But why? I mean, why isn't his name coming up in the letters?

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  4. Funny you ask that -- because his name isn't in them. I find that statistically unlikely - a clear choice on the part of the editors.

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  5. So what difference does it make? If C&EN editors selected readers' letters to avoid certain points being mentioned it is still a lie by omission. If anything it is even worse.

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  6. The big picture is that C&E N does not like to rock the boat with The Establishment, i.e prestigious universities and well-connected university faculty. Not so much Harran himself, per se.

    -Anonymous #2

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  7. C&EN ran ALL of the letters it received on Jyllian Kemsley's coverage of the accident at UCLA, either in print or online. Harran's name is not prominent in the word cloud because almost none of the letters mentioned him.

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  8. In that case, Mr. Baum, I stand corrected and I withdraw my comment that it was a choice on the part of the editorial staff.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20