Week 5 Abstracts

“Calling for Back-up” (2005)  

The main point of this Boston Globe article is that op-ed writers are often not held to the same rigorous standards as general assignment reporters when it comes to backing up assertions with hard evidence. The author cites a couple of high-profile examples of columns that seemed to make broad assertions while giving little idea of where the writer learned such “facts.”

I agree with the author’s suggestion that op-ed writers should include in brackets where they got their information so that editors can decide which assertions are truly valid. Chacón, the paper’s ombudsman, makes the point that op-ed writers are important arbiters of public opinion and the only writers at the paper who are allowed to draw conclusions in print. Therefore, their conclusions must be heavily sourced and completely defensible.

 “A Billion People Can Be Wrong” (2006)  

This article underscores the importance of checking the figures. In this case, “checking” does not merely mean running a few simple calculations to see if the sums match, but rather going back to the source to verify the truth of the figures.

While many news outlets report that a billion people will watch any given Super Bowl, a careful investigation of the facts revealed that the true viewing audience falls short by about 90 percent of that number. The gross misreporting is attributable to PR hype surrounding the game. What started out as a potential viewing audience of 1 billion becomes a guaranteed billion viewers as event promoters build a favorable buzz. Each news outlet that mimicked the inaccurate figure failed in its duty to verify the facts.

 “655,000 War Dead?” (2006)  

This article criticizes the methods used by a survey team from Johns Hopkins University that estimated the number of Iraqi civilian deaths at about four times greater than the figure arrived at by other similar studies. The author says that the sample size of respondents was much too small compared to the size of the Iraqi population and that surveyors failed to ask respondents any demographic information about themselves, precluding their ability to compare the respondents to the overall population.

The author warns that studies like this one have the potential to affect policy decisions for millions of people.  As editors, we should be aware of basic survey methods so as to evaluate the merit of survey results before printing them in our papers. I realize that deadline pressure may hinder our ability to thoroughly fact check; therefore, I would suggest imparting this knowledge to our reporters so that they can investigate methods while reporting on the results.  Case Study: “Violent Crime Increases in Gainesville”  

This story teaches us the value of knowing some basic math and knowing when to apply it. When you receive a story that is so full of figures and percentages, as this one is, first make sure that all numbers are both A. Necessary to the overall story and B. Well explained in context. For example, if the reporter says that the murder rate doubled, make sure he also mentions that it only doubled from one to two murders. Also, check all figures within the story against any accompanying charts or graphics. Finally, make sure any assertions in quotes are backed up by the accompanying figures. A “trend” is not really a trend unless you can back up your source’s assertions with hard statistics.