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antsar

Interesting topic but this article was tedious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_life_history

TLDR: They spawn in a few places out in the ocean, then migrate toward coasts as they mature.

European & American eel: North of the Antilles, Haiti, and Puerto Rico

Japanese eel: Near the Mariana Islands

South African eel: North of Madagascar

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I thought it was pretty fascinating to read the story of how obsessed scientists enlisted sailors to find smaller and smaller elvers to figure this out. The actual location isn't the interesting part.

I also had no idea that no one has ever seen them mate.

Except, according to the article, we've never even seen mature eels in the Sargasso Sea, we've never seen them mate, and we don't know why their population has fallen so much over a few decades.

> we don't know why their population has fallen so much

Nope, nom, nom, we don't know, nom, nom, why they got so scarce. Is a mystery.

Citation needed. Did eel consumption and fishing increase significantly with industrialization? The article in the OP doesn't offer a single explanation.

> Citation needed

Pvaldes was here, 2020

Doesn't cover Australian or New Zealand eels. The NZ longfinned eel (Anguilla dieffenbachii) is believed to spawn in the Tonga Trench: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga_Trench

Funny. As if declaring your opinion changed people's tastes.

I think this type of descent into "storytelling" is one of the anti-patterns of modern journalistic writing. Why isn't there a major push back against these anti-patterns among journalists, I often wonder.

Although the linked article was refreshingly readable, the general answer to your question is because more text = more opportunity to weave adverts in between the paragraphs. Storytelling is an easy way to bulk out the text when your facts are light.

Also, to be less cynical, some people are after entertainment as much as education, and will enjoy reading a story rather than a lecture.

Yeah interestingly the New Yorker does not split articles with ads in the middle. It’s one of their things.

I love the New Yorker and enjoy all of its quirks.

I think this kind of complaint about the elegant use of language in writing is one of the anti-patterns of a modern society trained to communicate in 140 character ALL CAPS shouting. One of the things that I always find fascinating is the level of expression you find in everyday letters by everyday people written in the 19th century. It seems very sad that despite the fact that long form writing is much easier now than when it had to be hand-written in ink people no longer have the patience for writing or reading it.

I am not complaining about elegant use of language; Use of rich language to express complex and nuanced concepts is a good thing. But presenting the whole matter as "Story" is what I find uninteresting, and oftentimes misleading. Give us the facts, the theories and explanations; but telling it as "Story" does really a disservice to readers, and even seems against the spirit of journalism.

What exactly is the spirit of journalism and how did you come to know it through your study of the history of journalism?

Well, the gold standard is what journalists call "inverted pyramid". You start with a TL;DR, and then expand recursively. This way, the reader can get more and more detailed picture as they read on, and stop at the moment they feel they've satisfied their needs.

This is how you present information if you care about your reader. The reason it's not done almost anywhere is because maximizing profit is done by minimizing utility, so that you can drag the curious reader through as many ads as they have patience to bear.

This is the New Yorker! It is not written as a Wikipedia article or even a science article. The New Yorker has a long history with its own voice. You are not necessarily wrong in a generalized statement, but this is not the piece to raise this opinion against.

What you describe is a way to write newspaper articles for impatient and overburdened readers who probably won't finish reading them.

New Yorker stories have a different purpose and a different audience. People who subscribe to the New Yorker like it because it gives them stories written just this way. If you don't, wikipedia is right there. You can tell it will be a New Yorker story because it says so.

I guarantee you that the writing is not that way to "drag" anyone through ads or to strain their patience.

If I had read the story on the toilet at work I would have found this style extremely annoying since has presented as a mystery at the beginning of the article. Reading this story at home on my chick I found it extremely interesting. Not everything has to be a quick read and the article does a good job of introducing the topic so that one can just wikipedia it if they have to

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