Selectively Distorting the Stats to Sell Newspapers
That newspapers distort the news should be no particular surprise to anyone. The other day, a headline for a story about the conflict in Iraq read:
More importantly this headline ignores other statistics which will never appear on the front page of your home town paper, even though the numbers are obviously more revealing and significant in this particular conflict.
Have you seen this headline recently?:
Probably not. No one keeps a count, by gender and age, of how many Iraqis are killed every day in some bombing in a crowded market place. Please note that these victims are murdered not by Americans, but by their fellow Arabs... by their own neighbors and co-religionists. For most news stories, it is usually sufficient to list the total of dead and wounded. Anymore, such bombings are so commonplace that most of us just sort of gloss over the article, if we even bother to read it.
I am in no way attempting to diminish the needless deaths of two Iraqi children and an Iraqi woman. I am only suggesting that the loss of their lives in no way gives us any true sense of perspective about this egregiously needless conflict.
However, I would like to put forward a modest proposal. Ask your local newspaper to keep a daily count, with a breakout by children, women and men, on the number of people who are murdered every day in Iraq by their Arab compatriots. That would put the death of two children and one woman in a more understandable perspective and give us a better sense of who to cast in the role of the bad guys.
U.S. Troops Kill Two Children and A Woman in RaidThat headline struck me as amazing in the fact it even appeared. First, it is in the nature of modern warfare that innocent civilians get caught in the crossfire. I am not being callous. Rather I am simply stating an obvious fact. Secondly, when US troops are sent out on actions, they do not do so with the premeditated intention of killing women, the elderly or children.
More importantly this headline ignores other statistics which will never appear on the front page of your home town paper, even though the numbers are obviously more revealing and significant in this particular conflict.
Have you seen this headline recently?:
Suicide Bomber Kills 20 children and 15 Women in Baghdad Market
Probably not. No one keeps a count, by gender and age, of how many Iraqis are killed every day in some bombing in a crowded market place. Please note that these victims are murdered not by Americans, but by their fellow Arabs... by their own neighbors and co-religionists. For most news stories, it is usually sufficient to list the total of dead and wounded. Anymore, such bombings are so commonplace that most of us just sort of gloss over the article, if we even bother to read it.
I am in no way attempting to diminish the needless deaths of two Iraqi children and an Iraqi woman. I am only suggesting that the loss of their lives in no way gives us any true sense of perspective about this egregiously needless conflict.
However, I would like to put forward a modest proposal. Ask your local newspaper to keep a daily count, with a breakout by children, women and men, on the number of people who are murdered every day in Iraq by their Arab compatriots. That would put the death of two children and one woman in a more understandable perspective and give us a better sense of who to cast in the role of the bad guys.
posted by hfireman | 9:59 PM
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