A week of unintentional laughs
Becket Adams
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If it’s the broader press’s goal to convince its critics the professional news business is indeed deeply unserious, it’s doing a bang-up job.
The past week in news reporting has seen a virtual barrage of articles both inane and absurd. To the layman, the reports appear as satire, as if it’s all a gag meant for laughs. But the reports are not written as satire. Their authors are serious. It would be funny, in an unintentional sort of way, were it not all to the further detriment of the broader press’s already badly tattered reputation.
Yahoo! News, for example, published a report this week alleging there’s a correlation between the unvaccinated and victims of traffic accidents.
“People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study,” the headline reads.
You can be forgiven for assuming the story is an intentional parody of the fanatic COVID-19 mitigation rhetoric that ruled the discourse between 2020 and 2021. After all, “get the shot or you’ll die in a car crash” isn’t too far removed from “wear a mask or you’re pro-dead grandmas.” Alas, Yahoo! is not joking. The report is in earnest.
“If you passed on getting the COVID vaccine, you might be a lot more likely to get into a car crash,” the report reads.
Exactly four paragraphs later, the story clarifies: “Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also ‘neglect basic road safety guidelines.'”
Ah, well. Nevertheless.
The study doesn’t do what the Yahoo! headline claims it does. The study doesn’t prove a link between traffic accidents and the unvaccinated. The “are” in the headline “People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents” is taking liberty with a theory.
And it’s important to stress that the traffic accident study only posits a theory. Why Yahoo! felt compelled to treat a theory as a news event is anyone’s guess. It certainly doesn’t seem like the behavior of a newsroom that grasps the severity of the news industry’s ongoing credibility challenges.
Feted man
There’s a place for tongue-in-cheek writing. There are also limits.
The New York Times labeling incoming Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania one of the “most stylish” people of 2022 stretches the boundaries of the imagination. And probably good taste.
“The senator-elect from Pennsylvania is going to bring Carhartt to the Capitol,” the newspaper gushed in a listicle this week, titled the “93 Most Stylish ‘People’ of 2022.”
Fetterman’s inclusion on the list is meant either as a joke, in which case it seems a bit cruel, turning his appearance into a punchline, or in earnest, which is — well, that’s something else entirely.
In case you’ve forgotten or are unaware, Fetterman’s wardrobe appears to consist entirely of hoodies and cargo shorts. Not terrible, but also not what one would consider when one considers “most stylish.” If Fetterman is a style icon, then the entire New York Times fashion section would be wall-to-wall Rust Belt steelworkers.
Sorry, Timothee Chalamet. You’ve got nothing on Stan from USW Local 285.
Fun with numbers
The only thing as dangerous as a child with a loaded firearm is a newsman with statistics.
Neither understands what he’s doing, and both are just a moment away from causing serious harm to himself and others.
At the Washington Post, the sad cliche that says newsmen don’t understand basic math and statistics was alive and well this week following the publication of an opinion article regarding the “whiteness” of Argentina’s World Cup team.
“Why doesn’t Argentina have more Black players in the World Cup?” asks the headline of a Dec. 8 opinion article. Its subhead reads, “Argentina is far more diverse than many people realize — but the myth that it is a White nation has persisted.” The bookmark headline likewise reads, “Black erasure in Argentina helps explain its World Cup team.”
The problem with the article, insofar as journalism is concerned, is not so much with the author or the overall thrust of her argument. It is what it is. The problems lie in the Washington Post’s editing process, the headlines it chose for the story, and its attempts to interpret and present demographic statistics.
First up, the paper’s original presentation of the data.
The op-ed read initially, “In 2010, Argentina’s government released a census that noted 149,493 people, which amounts to 1 percent of the country, was Black. For many, that data seemed to confirm that Argentina was indeed a White nation.” The story has been revised to show the percentage of black people in Argentina is actually far, far smaller than even the original op-ed claimed.
The article reads now, “In 2010, Argentina’s government released a census that noted 149,493 people, far less than one percent of the country, was Black. For many, that data seemed to confirm that Argentina was indeed a White nation.”
This already infinitesimally small number of black Argentinians includes the elderly, women, children, and men younger and older than the playing age of professional soccer players. So, when you remove these groups, leaving only males within the professional soccer age bracket, the less than 1% gets even smaller. All of this leads to the broader point: Why did the Washington Post frame the op-ed the way it did? It’s almost laughable when one takes the paper’s since-revised data into consideration.
Put another way, the headline and its subhead ask: Why, in a country where less than 1% of the population is black, and the number of professional soccer-eligible black men is even smaller than less than 1%, are there not more black players on Argentina’s World Cup team?
Yes, why? Mysteries abound.