From: spira@panix.com (Greg "Sarcasm Is A Way Of Life" Spira)
Subject: Re: Value of Stats
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 00:24:58 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Future ? Of America  

In <3867@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> dtate+@pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:

>In article <Bs3u7v.523@undergrad.math.waterloo.edu> djohnson@cayley.uwaterloo.ca (David Johnson) writes:

>>Do you listen to the
>>radio?  Do you watch TV.  If you answer ye to any of these my next question
>>is why.  If you think that all reports are biased and can't be trusted then
>>why the heck do you listen, read or watch them.

>For amusement.  I just don't *believe* them, after having so much evidence to
>hand that says it's mostly lies, misunderstandings, or sensationalism..

>Have you ever been involved personally in a matter that received media 
>attention, so that you had first-hand knowledge of things?  I have, on several
>occasions.  In each case, the publicly-reported version of things was wrong
>in several particulars, inaccurate, misleading, and incomplete.  My friends
>who have been in similar situations report similar experiences.  In fact, I've
>never met anyone who has been involved in a situation which was reported in a
>way that managed to convey even the gist of the situation accurately.  Given
>that, why am I supposed to believe that my friends and I have simply had an
>extraordinary run of bad luck in this regard?

I've had the same experience.  Whenever I actually am reasonably expert on
a subject that appears in a newspaper article, I'm stunned by the amount of
stuff the article gets wrong.  There was an article in Barron's a few months
ago on an company/industry I'm very familiar with, and I counted 25 factual
errors in that one 30 paragraph article alone.  Way back in high school, I
was always amused by the fact that there was never a single error-free
paragraph in the local paper's articles covering my school.  I see things
in the New York Times main section all the time that I know are plain
nonsense.

And the strange thing is that I used to be an admirer of the media.  I still
read hundreds of periodicals monthly.  But I'm growing very, very skeptical
about whether I can actually believe anything written.  You look at people
like David Halberstam, who has written numerous award winning and influential
books, and then you find that the Summer of '49 is just filled with errors
- what is one supposed to think?    

And I'm talking mainly about the non-sports media.  Sports media people 
really don't seem to view themselves as real journalists for the most
part - they seem to act more as part of the entertainment industry.  And,
granted, sports doesn't have to be taken as seriously as famines and wars.
But that doesn't excuse not taking what one writes about the subject
seriously.   I'm sure that most decent political reporters have taken the
time to learn statistics so that they can understand polls etc. properly.
It's fairly obvious that 99 3/4% of sports reporters don't have the foggiest
understanding of baseball statistics.

Greg  
-- 
  spira@panix.com       "The one-O delivery to Fisk.  He swings.  Long drive,  
 cmcl2!panix!spira      left field!  If it stays fair, it's gone!  Home Run!"  
158-17 Riverside Dr.                     Ned Martin, 10/22/75   
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