I recently diatribed on the difference between journalistic storytelling and sociological storytelling and this is case in point. Sociological storytelling finds an interesting story in a representative case rather than making a case of an interesting story. https://twitter.com/natesilver538/status/1310789811473723392

The difference is most stark in opinion writing (to be very fair, less stark in well reported serious journalism).

And this is at the heart of my beef with high profile opinion writers like these. By virtue of being male and white, their cases are taken as sociological whereas minority writer’s carefully crafted sociological stories are taken as journalistic in the worst sense.

I am working on an essay right now that will maybe end up being about a taco truck and race (seriously) and I’m starting with demography and census data for this reason - the fidelity to case selection to craft a story that isn’t crass ideology.

And someone will read it one day and think I did a Chait. And I will cry.

Anyway, drives me nuts.