Week 7

In the first reading, “Before you publish a rape victim’s name,” the author, Kelly McBride, discusses the journalistic taboo surrounding the publication of rape victims’ names. McBride does an excellent job of really answering her own questions about why rape victims do not want to be named, even though she ultimately concludes that much of the blame should be placed on journalists themselves for prior poor treatment of the subject of rape and rape victims. 

She says that rape victims and their friends and family constitute a subculture and that, “Like many subcultures, people in this circle distrust the dominant institutions like law enforcement, the education system and the media.” She then explains that rape victims and people close to them distrust the media because when rape stories are published, they rarely reflect the reality of the crime. McBride explains that the most publicized rape stories that are published involve kidnapping and violence, when in reality, most rape victims are children who know their attackers. She suggests that the first step toward solving the problem of journalistic inaccuracy in reporting rape stories is to report them with “journalistic purpose,” which would require newsrooms to develop official policies for how to cover stories with both sensitivity and clarity. She suggests discussing the policy with a group of law enforcement officers, rape victims and rape counselors.

Ultimately, McBride’s article is all about responsibly reporting an issue that must be handled with the utmost respect and sensitivity. The article is insightful and clearly explains some of the issues behind anonymity in rape stories and how journalists can eventually overcome that obstacle through consistently responsible and sensitive reporting of stories. She identifies both why a problem exists and how it can be fixed by going to the source – the victims themselves. Journalists can’t always think in terms of just getting the story; doing that, especially in the case of rape victims, will never result in getting the whole story, or even any of the parts that actually matter toward increasing rape awareness. Sanitized age/sex/location details barely scratch the surface of the victims’ real stories, and McBride fully illuminates that in this article.

The author of second article I read discussed sexual assault from the opposite side of the fence – that of the offenders. “Sex offender photos prompt debate in a newsroom” is about a newspaper’s decision to publish the booking mugs of 63 area sex-offenders on the front page. In the article, Scott Underwood, the managing editor, said that the debate about whether or not to publish the photos began months before publication, but that the photos were ultimately published because many readers do not have access to the internet and therefore don’t have access to the online registry of sex offenders. Underwood said that readers’ right to know about the sex offenders took precedence over sensitivity to the sex offenders themselves. Although several of the sex offenders contact the newspaper and complained that their jobs and relationships had been jeopardized as a result of the story, Underwood said that the real issue was their failure to be honest with people before the story was ever published.

I admit up-front that I am completely disinclined to harbor any sensitivities whatsoever toward sex offenders; people like this are the reason why I want to become a prosecutor. That being said, I very much admire that the paper discussed the ethical considerations surrounding this story months before it was even published. The only concerns that really needed to be discussed were those of the sex offenders – most other people in the community could only benefit from this story. The only ones with anything to lose were “the bad guys,” and yet the paper brought all their potential concerns to the table before publishing the story, even though I’m sure none of them really sympathized very much with area sex offenders. Although the story was published, the process of ethical consideration (not just victims and potential victims) that the paper went through prior to publication serves as a good example to other newspapers. All parties involved in or affected by a story need to be taken into account, even if they are despicable.

Week 6

I read the three-part series “Questions Reporters Should Ask” by Todd Gitlin on the Neiman Watchdog: Questions the Press Should Ask Web site. Each of the three articles included eight questions that reporters should ask Huckabee, Romney and Obama, respectively. The first question on his list for Huckabee is in response to Huckabee saying, “If we see any part of our society and culture that’s decaying, what’s going to keep it from rotting? The Christians. God’s people.”

Gitlin asks, “Do you believe that people who are not Christians are not ‘God’s people’?” That’s a tough question and I can’t imagine how Huckabee would answer it, but if he is willing to make such a claim, he should be able to answer a question like Gitlin’s. Huckabee’s assertion that Christians are the only people who can save our culture from “decaying” is a clear attempt to endear himself to conservative Christians, but it is also a divisive comment considering the fact that there are many religious groups present in the U.S. today.

Gitlin’s questions for the other candidates are also largely follow-up questions based on things the candidates have said in the past, probably during campaign speeches to people who already supported them. Presidential candidates of both major political parties need to be able to substantiate and defend the assertions they make to everyone, not just to people who already agree with them.

Jennifer Ernst and Matthew Barge dissected claims of two senators concerning the consequences of Roe v.Wade in their article “Abortion Distortions” on FactCheck.org. Just as the previous article concerned the validity of assertions made by presidential candidates attempting to endear their electorates, this reading concerns the accuracy of statements made by elected officials attempting to further their own political causes. Predictably, Republican Senator Rick Santorum believes that Roe v. Wade has had a negative impact on society, and Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer asserts that it has had a positive effect. The issue, however, is not the viewpoint of either senator regarding Roe v. Wade but rather, the “facts” they use in support of their positions.

Boxer, the Democrat, claimed that if abortion was made illegal, 5,000 women would die per year – an assertion that is, as Ernst and Barge revealed, based on a 1936 study conducted before the introduction of penicillin or other advances in abortion techniques. The statistic is, by all accounts from abortion statistic experts, outdated. Santorum, the Conservative, claimed that the suicide rate among women has become “much worse” since Roe v. Wade, but according to the Center for Disease Control, the suicide rate among women had actually dropped two percentage points when the article was written.

Both senators’ claims seemed believable, and there are surely people who have heard or read those assertions that took the senators at their word. The easily conducted research done by the authors of the article shows, however, that both Boxer and Santorum knew that their “facts” were not completely correct and knowingly manipulated accurate information to further their own campaigns (for or against) abortion rights.

The other article I chose to read was listed as “FactCheck Subscribers Find Us Clear, Unbiased, Reliable and Useful,” on the class syllabus, but I couldn’t find the article on FactCheck.org, so I decided to read an article about Ron Paul, in keeping with the elected-officials theme I’ve created so far. “Wrong Paul” by Joe Miller was interesting to read because Ron Paul is, if nothing else, one of the most entertaining political candidates I’ve had the pleasure of watching and listening to during debates. Miller starts by examining some of Paul’s “more outlandish claims” including one theory that a “secret conspiracy composed of the Security and Prosperity Partnership and a cabal of foreign companies is behind plans to build a NAFTA Superhighway as the first step toward creating a North American Union”…huh? Miller shows that the Superhighway is actually a myth and that the organizations Paul cites in the above claim are “neither secret nor nefarious.” Paul has made many fanatical claims, particularly during the Republican debates, but to read some of the things he has said is enlightening because it seems like he simply fabricates conspiracy theories.

Most Republicans now claim to love Ronald Reagan, whether or not they actually loved him when he was in office. Apparently Ron Paul has jumped on the bandwagon too, trying to build an affinity with Republicans by establishing a connection between himself and Ronald Reagan in his television ads; Miller points out, however, that Paul attempted “to totally disassociate” himself from Reagan in 1988. Paul, an extreme conservative even by most Republicans’ estimation, is not above trying to gain more votes from moderate Republicans, and he probably thinks that associating himself with the beloved Ronald Reagan is a way to do that. As Miller shows, however, Paul’s connection with Reagan is questionable at best.

Week 5

In his article “A Billion People Can Be Wrong,” Steve Rushin makes a great point: journalists should always be suspicious of high numerical figures reported by organizations whose best interests are vested in, well, high numerical figures. In light of the recent frenzy surrounding the Giants’ history-making win over the Patriots, the Super Bowl seems, more than ever, to be a sporting event beloved by all. It is so beloved, in fact, that a staggering one billion people watched it this year. Or did they? The NFL reports that the Super Bowl is broadcast to a potential one billion viewers in 225 countries (potentially, of course). Having the potential to do something, however, is no guarantee that it will actually be done.

 

Initiative, a media research firm, estimated in a study that only 93 million people watched the Super Bowl last year, with North Americans accounting for 98 percent of those viewers. This figure is grossly divergent from the one reported by several newspapers and other media outlets, because journalists allowed themselves to be spoon-fed misleading statistics by the NFL. Although, thanks to the clever use of the word “potential,” the NFL did not technically lie in its approximation of the Super Bowl audience, journalists should hone their “built-in, shock-proof b.s. detectors,” which Rushin claims most American sports fans already have, in order to avoid being hoodwinked in the future. After reading the article, I wondered how American journalists could actually believe that so many people in other countries would actually watch the Super Bowl. Part of the problem is Americans’ tendency to think solely in terms of American culture, even when referencing other countries. Why would the average Frenchman honestly be interested in watching football, a sport that is really only played in America? I don’t think many Americans tune in to watch the Cricket World Cup.

 

Scott R. Maier’s article “Journalists + math = anxiety, self-doubt” made me wonder why journalism schools don’t require students to take basic math classes, even before Maier raised the point. Although the level of math proficiency required for an average article containing numbers is only that of a junior high school student, journalists are still insecure about executing basic math problems. At the risk of over-simplifying the issue, I think this is because journalists, like so many other professionals in various fields of work, convince themselves that they are only good at one thing. I know engineering students who are math-dynamos, yet have convinced themselves that they can’t write the most basic papers or briefs of projects, just as so many journalism students claim the only thing they know how to do is write.

 

Maier is right that providing journalists with basic-math education is the first and best way to remedy the rampant fear of numbers prevalent in journalism today; however, I also think that this problem largely stems from insecurity among journalists who can’t seem to fully embrace the The-Little-Engine-That-Could mindset. Although I enjoy the “No one in this class can add or subtract because we’re a bunch of journalism majors” joke as much as the next person, it is really more embarrassing than anything else, because everyone seems to believe that it’s true. The reality is that if we all sat there for just a few moments and thought about how to solve the math problems in front of us, rather than about new jokes to crack about how bad at math we all are, we would probably be successful. No one is going to come in and, calculator in hand, whip up percentages for us, no matter how long we stall for time.

 

Journalists also need to know how to do math so that they can protect readers from suspicious assertions such as the one-billion-Super-Bowl-viewers claim made by the NFL. If a journalist can’t make a percentage difference out of two numbers, he probably doesn’t think critically about numbers at all – to the point that he might not be wary of the claim that one billion people worldwide watch a purely-American sporting event. As Rushin pointed out in his article, several newspapers claimed the Super Bowl would be watched by one billion people, even though the population of America is less than a third of that figure.

 

“Frank Fee’s Tips for Accuracy” reinforced ideas presented in both of the above articles. Although he covers many aspects of ensuring accuracy in writing, such as taking all questions into consideration, checking maps and re-checking facts with sources, Fee makes three basic assertions about math in journalism which relate to the previous readings.

 

The first point, “Don’t rely on another person’s figures,” is made clearly in Rushin’s column about the NFL’s Super Bowl viewing assertions. Media outlets trusted the NFL’s one-billion-viewers-worldwide claim without questioning. If they had just thought about the enormity of one billion people, and then thought about the impossibility of so many international fans for a sport that is really only played in the U.S., the rest would have followed.

 

Fee’s second point, “Remember that ‘officials’ and ‘experts’ may be just as bad at math as journalists,” is addressed in Rushin’s article as well, because NFL representatives purposefully used misleading wording to push a claim that was actually all but impossible; although this was less an issue of officials being bad at math than it was a marketing ploy, it would have served journalists well to have thought critically about the claim rather than allow the NFL to distort reality through their newspapers.  

 

Scott Maier’s article addresses Fee’s third point: “Don’t be too proud or busy to consult a math text or math guide–and have one available.” Maier is an advocate of mathematical instruction for journalism students and journalists. If every journalist had a math book to reference for help with percentages or ratios, articles would probably be better written and more accurate.

 

The case study article we read in class had an important message about crime rates in Gainesville, but I’m not sure what it was. It was riddled not only with numerical inaccuracies but, simply, with a plethora of numbers that, in some cases, were unnecessary. It was an eye-opener about the dangers of not breaking down numerical data for readers. That is not to say that readers are stupid or can’t comprehend numbers, because they aren’t, and they can – but it is obvious when reading an article such as the one we read in class that the journalist himself doesn’t even understand what he’s written. Not only were the percentages cited in the article incorrect (as could be determined by calculating the percentages off of the table of information), but there were simply too many numbers in each sentence. There is just something about having more than one or two numbers in a sentence that makes my head hurt, and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that way.

 

Writing an article chock-full of statistics doesn’t show a comprehensive study or deep understanding of an issue – it shows the exact opposite. A journalist’s inability to break-down complicated information shows nothing more than his own ineptitude and/or laziness, and results in readers giving up on the article before they’ve reached the third sentence. The article is a concrete example of the problem with numbers that so many journalists admit to having, and it reinforces Scott Maier’s assertion that all journalists should be well-trained in practical mathematics so that they can better (and more accurately) relay messages to readers.