The Good News Industry

The NY Times has apparently promoted John Tierney to the op-ed columnist position vacated by William Safire. Chris Mooney has a piece from a few years ago chronicling Tierney's approach to journalism. Let's say that he comes close to The Good News Industry style of reporting that achieved some notoriety a decade ago. This consisted of publishing encouraging news items, ostenstibly written up to counteract dire warnings of future maladies. (Waaay too many scary prognostications back then; nowadays with the bad things happening in real-time, this type of journalism has morphed into the Fair and Balanced style favored by such outlets as Fox news.) Mooney notes that Tierney has written quite often on science and the environment, predominantly from a Libertarian perspective; he likes to think that the free market alone can force positive outcomes. Watch Tierney carefully, as he will likely cover energy issues in his column while sounding positive about our future prospects, kind of like a John Stossel in print.

In keeping with the theme, I also have Good News to report. I have taken pains to carefully monitor the physical characteristics of a stationary stone in my possession. By tracking measurements of the stone's weight, I believe I can corrolate the stone's stability against future stability in the oil markets. As I have noted constant weight data over the past few years, I have high hopes for a stable future supply of oil.

In an analogous story:

"The stone feels cold," he said on touching the carving and columns. "But dry."

Breaking into a smile, he added, "So the pope will live."

Good news, indeed.