Reporters in New York City have some of the world's greatest human interest stories right in their metaphorical back yard (so few of them actually have back yards). And yet they often write their stories like stereotypical students at a j-school surrounded by cornfields, tossing off story after story in what those who follow the situation say is a disturbing and dangerous epidemic of pieces about teenagers drinking. What's more, a 2007 city survey found that 28% of white reporters at the city's major papers had, within the month before the survey was taken, written the four or five stories in one session necessary to qualify as a "binge."

White journalists have been shown to binge write at much higher rates than their nonwhite counterparts. While no comparable statistics exist for the city's magazines, a quick perusal of New York suggests such behavior is frequent.

The reporters say writing about drunk teens allows them to eschew actual work and to relax at the end of a week filled with updating resumes and reading Romenesko. And sometimes drinking.

"With reporters like me, it's about getting the story in—because it's easy, because they keep putting these studies out," a 24-year-old reporter at the New York Sun said. "At the point of filing, we feel a release and then we can take off early for the weekend."

'Being Very Drunk' Is Tried by More Students in City [NYS]