In my previous post I explained why I thought the media coverage of Arday had been so good. Mostly readers seemed to agree with me, but I got a bit of pushback on my insistence that the volume wasn’t excessive, and so I thought it was worth discussing further why there was so much coverage, and why it was justified.
One reason the story went so big is that it brought together so many matters of current importance, controversy and interest that are largely undercovered. These include falling standards and increasing politicisation in higher education, which many members of the news-reading classes are extremely worried about from what they see of their own children’s experiences, and identitarian hiring practices, which most are familiar with from their own workplaces and many regard as outrageous, but which are risky to speak about openly. It also involves one of the most toxic subjects imaginable (and remember I’m approaching a decade in the Gender Wars!), namely the cause and significance of differences in average IQ and other indicators of intelligence and expertise between groups originating in different parts of the world.
