War Story

He was wondering whether to move a little higher the government's offer to let the rebels open a liaison office in the capital, when his thoughts were jangled by the frantic rings that signaled a telephone call from overseas. It must be his foreign desk, asking how soon he would be filing.

But no, the caller identified himself as an assistant professor at some journalism school whose whereabouts in the United States T.K. could not place.

"I'm feeding the goat," T.K. said.

There was a pause. "I'm calling Farrow, the foreign correspondent," said the caller, "not the goatherd."

"That's me, on deadline. Can you call back?"

"Our journalism review has deadlines too, and you're in it. The media can't duck its responsibilities."

"Media's plural," T.K. suggested.

 "My computer analyzed the media's coverage of C.I.A. meddling in your country," said the professor. "I fed twenty-five articles into my computer and crunched them, factoring in story position, length, impact, focus."

 "That's nice," said T.K., "but I need to file --"

"Los Angeles Times mentioned the C.I.A. in the context of Equatoria six times in February, New York Times and Washington Post did it five times, yet my computer readout shows nothing about the C.I.A. under your byline. Why are you covering this up?"

"I wrote something on the C.I.A. in late January." T.K. tried to recollect. "Or was it early March?"

"So my statistical analysis doesn't lie -- you ignored the C.I.A. in February. You're not looking so professional, Mr. Farrow."

"I wrote my takeout in February, but my paper didn't have room till March because of a big scandal at city hall."

"So my correlation coefficients prove that you didn't exist, February-wise."

T.K. asked how January or March looked.

"Statistically, we've done February," the professor said. "If I did January and March, I wouldn't have time to teach my journalism courses."

"A promising option," T.K. said.

"Don't sneer at we who mold tomorrow's journalists. The media isn't well served by you."

"Aren't well served."

"What's your null hypothesis?" the professor asked.

"My null what?"

"Null hypothesis, your bias, your point of view, your motive for writing."

"My null hypothesis,"T.K. said, "is that if I keep telling my editors what happens here, they'll keep paying me."

 But the professor had hung up.

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