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Truth Is In The Eye Of The Pollster
In the United States, pollsters are constantly taking the pulse of the
body politic. Defended as mere measurement of public opinion, polling is in fact a pseudoscientific conjuration, manipulating "perceptions, attitudes and decisions at every level of our society," according to Gallup pollster David Moore. Moreover, as media critic Norman Solomon points out, poll results are often tainted by the ideological biases of partisan funders. Journalists are essential cogs in the machinery of opinion management, suggests Solomon. "All too often, reporters simply pass along results of polls that were designed to influence voter sentiment, not merely measure it," he writes.
From FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), May 17 1996
Cooking The Books
When the media rely on politicians and their partisan advisors as
official sources "cooked," or biased, data can have a profound
influence on public discourse and, ultimately, public policy. In 1996, the press swallowed a report about the alleged unreliability of the U.S. consumer price index, which is the basis for Social Security benefits and income tax brackets. The commission that produced the report was stacked with ideologues who were on record as believing the C.P.I. was overstated before they were appointed. This was "no mere numbers game," writes Nation contributor Doug Henwood. "Real money [was] at stake," in the form of smaller pension checks and higher taxes. For pensioners living on the margins, overcooked data, served up by uncritical newsmedia, can be toxic.
From The Nation magazine, December 23 1996
Case Studies
On The Trail Of The Factoid
When statistical figures enter the media consciousness, they become "common knowledge," and no attribution is deemed necessary. In 1997, U.S. media reports about food poisoning consistently stated the total number of fatalities as 9,000. Many reports cited the number unattributed, while others offered a variety of sources. Digging deeper, reporter Dan Wilson found the number originated with a single source: a 1994 guesstimate by Dr. Tanya Roberts, head of the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. Not only did the media obscure the fact that this number was based on "one researcher's best guess," they inflated it over time, from 9,000 to 9,100 to 10,000, a year later. Wilson calls it "unattributed-numbers bracket creep." From Columbia Journalism Review, June 1 1998
Lolita Nation
"Too Young to Be Women," the headlines scream. For 25 years, reporters and commentators have provoked media frenzies by claiming that new scientific evidence proves girls are reaching puberty earlier, going from playing with Barbies to looking like Barbie before they've reached double-digits. But, according to Salon contributor Karen Houppert, the media have distorted what the studies actually show, namely, that the age of puberty onset has been constant for 50 years, and that the previous research was simply wrong. Media reports like last year's Newsweek cover story, "Tweens: Are They Growing Up Too Fast?" make another leap of logic unsupported by data: that earlier puberty means earlier sex. By neglecting the real facts on biological development and teen sexuality, writes Houppert, "media alarmists" are misguiding our
society's approach to raising our girls.
From Salon.com, October 22 1999
Unmaking The Grade
It's an accepted reality in the United States that American students are educationally way behind their peers in other industrialized countries. Loudly lamented by politicians and echoed by the media, the failures of the American school system have pushed education to the top of the public agenda. But, as researcher Gerald W. Bracey reports, the media have misrepresented the actual data comparing students internationally. Thus, education policy — and the public mind — are focused entirely on the wrong goals. Although ignored in the U.S. media, several credible international studies show that, in some areas, such as reading, American students are near the top in international comparisons, and that students from the top third of American schools score very well compared with their contemporaries around the world. In stark contrast, the bottom third of U.S. schools rank among the world's worst. By selectively reporting data, overlooking the failings of some studies, excluding the results of others, and relying too often on government pronouncements, the media have directed public attention away from the real problems in American education and onto a fictitious crisis. From The American Prospect, April 1 1998
Battered Science
Last year, when University of Wisconsin psychology professor Terrie Moffitt released her findings that women commit domestic violence more often than men, media reports extolled her debunking of old feminist "myths." Ironically, these "myths," like Moffitt's conclusions, were based on scientific studies funded by official agencies such as the Department of Justice. So why are some results framed as scientific revelations while others are discredited as "ideological" assumptions? According to FAIR's Women's Desk Director Jennifer L. Pozner, it's a clear case of media bias. Not only did media outlets summarily discount all the other academic and official research on domestic violence which contradicted Moffitt's findings, they blatantly ignored the mitigating factors in her results. Moffitt's study, which was based on personal accounts by 1,000 21-year-old New Zealanders, can, like most studies of human interaction, be criticized for its methodology, sample size, and other variables. But in the media, as exemplified by a story in Mother Jones magazine, Moffitt's conclusions are "uncomfortable truths." From FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), November 9 1999
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