Asymmetrical Information

If a Cleveland library was a minor contributor, they'd get big play in the Cleveland newspapers. Big whoop.

Um, not that Michigan isn't a great school, but Harvard, Stanford and Oxford are more well-known universities with (particularly in the case of Harvard and Oxford) I think more well-known libraries. I can see how Harvard's and Oxford's contributions are considered more important or newsworthy (because of their prestige, etc.) even if Michigan is making a greater substantive contribution. You are, I think, looking too hard for bias that isn't there.

> I can see how Harvard's and Oxford's contributions are considered more important or newsworthy (because of their prestige, etc.) even if Michigan is making a greater substantive contribution.

Huh? How does their prestige make their lesser contributions more newsworthy?

Oh yes, "This is important because Harvard thinks that it is worth giving a pittance."

Jason - and what of Stamford and Oxford? Are they in New York?

Ravi and Jason - if you read really carefully (meaning all the words), you'll see I regarded it as simple parochialism, and possibly just an oversight (hint - check the New Yorker reference).

It was the reaction that was interesting.

I'm not from UMich myself, but it's a major university, and the Alma Mater of one of the founder's.

My point was that is library project is an important, but risky and controversial project (consider the reaction of book publishers, especially given how the MPAA and RIAA would react to a movie or music version of this project). That those with prestige attach themselves to it is newsworthy. I'm not asserting Michigan has no prestige - I agree that it is a well-respected school, but... I'd expect even my relatives in India to have heard of Harvard and Oxford. I doubt most of them know about Michigan. So I think there is a substantial prestige gap that can explain the reporter's choices without requiring the invocation of a warped perspective (though I will admit my invocation of bias was a result of not reading closely enough).

Of course it'd be OK for the NYT to blatantly slight Michigan (moreso than they in fact did here, I think) if it'd gone for Bush...after all, they can't exactly let people be reminded that Bush voters can be found within a thousand miles of a university worthy of mention, can they? :)

Of course, I don't think even the NYT is _actually_ that biased yet...but I don't think anyone on the left would fault them for it (or indeed even notice it...or accept it when presented with undeniable proof) if they were...not even the ones who had attended the festering sore of leftism that was being slighted.

Umm.... what the hell are you talking about? This has to be the worst post on this site ever. I disagree with lots of things that get posted here and elsewhere, but this one makes no sense. Maybe it's just me.

That was the worst comment I've ever seen!

"Prestige over substance" pretty much encapsulates the NY Times worldview. The dopes.

Didn't Ayn Rand write an article about prestige one time? IIRC she thought it was a stupid concept.

Thanks!

All facetiousness aside, I do think it was a bad post. On second reflection, it is no where near the worst ever. It's pretty bad fot his site, though. It's got talking states in it. Or something.

Back on the subject of the New York Times, I think it's kind of odd that someone who has libertarian leanings would have any more problem with the NYT then they do with any other daily paper. It's possible I had misunderstood the political bent of this site and you are really a bunch of Republican true believers. The New York Times is socially liberal (which a lot of times is closer to libertarian), pro-free trade (again libertarian), and is currently advocating fiscal discipline. On the down side they want to increase social spending.

I'm sure the people who work at the Times are almost all consider themselves liberals, but they are liberals with money. If I have to choose between the liberals with money and Pat Robertson, I'm with the liberals every time.

Ravi, maybe your relatives in India (and mine) might know the name of the University of Michigan were it mentioned in articles in which it should be mentioned?

Or something like that.

(I vote this a middling comment on a pretty okay post).

I suppose there is a theoretical possibility that greater press mentions would increase the possibility that my Indian relatives would have heard of the University of Michigan (though that seems to me more an issue for Michigan's PR department than for the NYT - unless you have documentation that people from Michigan specifically talked to people at the NYT to get mentioned in the article and failed to convince them), but it is also a pretty weak link. After all, it is not like my Indian relatives read American newspapers on anything like a regular basis. They do watch CNN and other American-originating cable channels, but these are all local editions so the American news content in them is pretty low.

Moreover, I expect that my relatives only have "mental space" for a few American universities (maybe 5 or 10), so it would be a fairly hard list for most American universities (even extremely good ones) to crack. I should also note that this is a bit of a tangent. My main point is that existing prestige relationships can explain what the NYT article without alleging any sort of bias (except that towards newsworthiness, as is appropriate for a newspaper) on the part of the NYT reporter. I'll add that this does serve as an example of how existing status relationships in society can be self-reinforcing (Harvard gets more public credit than Michigan even though Michigan is making a greater substantive contribution because of Harvard's existing prestige, which helps sustain that prestige while limiting Michigan's opportunity to increase its prestige), but I suppose you'd expect me to make that sort of observation given my political leanings.

(I vote that this comment is too long, but I am too lazy to make it short.)

If they're going to do libraries they better get started in CA where they are going to shut down a large number of them. That leaves the question, where could the digitals be used if libraries R closed??

60 Minutes could only bestir itself to mention Harvard and Oxford in their bit on the library project (a small part of their overall story on the company).

Grr... the comment spam filter is annoying, since I have to twist my thoughts to avoid the company's name.

"Jason - and what of Stamford and Oxford? Are they in New York?"

Well, crap. Yeah, pander-to-our readers is probably the best explanation. Not sure why the NYT doing this is noteworthy, though; it's a universal constant.

It's not just a random thing that the University of Michigan library is involved in the project. UM has been at the leading edge of this kind of thing for some time, for example:

http://www.si.umich.edu/UMDL/

More importantly, one of G00GLE's two principal founders, Larry Page, was a U of M (not Harvard or Yale) graduate:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3666241.stm

This is not an unusual background--Netscape founder Marc Andreeson came out of the University of Illinois:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreesen

I don't have numbers to back up the thesis, but my sense is that Ivy League schools have not contributed to the same degree. Or at least, their contribution has not nearly matched their outsized sense of importance. My speculative explanation would be that you're more likely to find graduates with an entreprenurial outlook from places like the University Michigan and the University of Illinois than from Ivy League schools where the dominant belief is that success derives from connections combined with doing exactly what one is expected to do at the highest level (e.g. 1600 on the SAT).

Harvard-dropout Bill Gates is a partial exception that proves the rule--his entreprenurial impulses were a poor fit at Harvard, and he dropped out.

P.S. I had to spell G00GLE with zeros instead of O's because the blog software thought the word was 'questionable content'. WTF?

I actually was not going to comment further, but I just read the Christmas issue of the Economist and noticed that it also omitted mention of the University of Michigan in their small blurb on the project. In fact, like 60 Minutes, it only mentioned Harvard and Oxford by name. At this point I'm tempted to congratulate the NYT for being broad-minded enough to include Stanford... And I admit to being curious as to whether or not your co-blogger will comment on her employer's editorial judgement.

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