> The numerous successful academics at reputable universities that I know (including me) are uniformly mortified when our names are associated with mistaken interpretations in the press. Some of us (including me) simply stop doing press interviews because it happens so often.
Absolutely! You're one of the good ones! I just wish you were in the majority. :-(
Edit: that's unfair. I don't know if you're in the majority or minority. I want to believe that most academics are still just silently plugging away and doing good work. It just really feels like things have shifted to the huckster side of the spectrum, and/or that is what is rewarded.
The hucksters would be over represented in the media for obvious reasons, and if you are not an academic, then you would primarily be exposed to academics via the media. Hundreds of thousands of academics doing great work, you only hear from a few dozen of them.
I was an academic in a past life. I left before I made it a profession, but I spent long enough there to see what I'm talking about. The people with the most successful careers get there by getting press, which doesn't usually correlate with academic rigor.
That said, I grant your broader point about selection bias.
Absolutely! You're one of the good ones! I just wish you were in the majority. :-(
Edit: that's unfair. I don't know if you're in the majority or minority. I want to believe that most academics are still just silently plugging away and doing good work. It just really feels like things have shifted to the huckster side of the spectrum, and/or that is what is rewarded.