Hoarding and what journalists do

Two things in Saturday’s Guardian caught my eye. A “boo” article about compulsive hoarding (“Why didn’t someone stop him? The council? The neighbours? Someone should have intervened…”) and a “hurrah” article about personal informatics—which (it seems to me) is just electronic compulsive hoarding!

Both articles interested me a lot because I have hoarding tendencies myself, but what struck me most was the extent to which both articles were shaped by the journalists’ desire to tell a story.

Refreshing contrast is provided by the new Science Behind the News Stories site.