Longreads

In downtown Portland, across Southwest 5th Avenue from City Hall, stands a tall glass and aluminum tower. Inside this building, the Pacwest Center, is a safe. This safe keeps many secrets, but this story is about the disputed contents of a single envelope. Inside the envelope were the last wishes of a holy man, instructions to be revealed after his death. Many of the holy man’s followers were successful entrepreneurs: One founded Kettle Chips, a Salem-based company whose owners sold it in 2006 for a reported $320 million; others co-founded Golden Temple foods in Eugene, a company famous for its Yogi Tea brand. More than a few of his followers were practicing lawyers. But the holy man trusted one lawyer in particular with the most sensitive matters of money, family and legacy.

Dunning and Kruger argued in their paper, "When people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it. Instead, like Mr. Wheeler, they are left with the erroneous impression they are doing just fine." It became known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence. But just how prevalent is this effect?

Which Song Tells Your Life?

On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Were excited to announce a new feature that well be rolling out next week on Nieman Storyboard. Whys This So Good? will explore what makes classic narrative nonfiction stories worth reading. Alexis…

Nov 29 2011 Earlier this year, I stumbled into an idea without a name. I wanted a word or phrase that includes journalism, social media, search engines, libraries, Wikipedia, and parts of…