Home <>----<> Photography <>----<> Muffins <>----<> Poetry, Prose & Politics <>----<> Purchase from On The Fly
The Cynical Libertarian Society
|
|
|
|
The Cynical Libertarian Society
|
|
|
|
10 Jul 98
The crisis continues... Gingrich & Schaeffer came to town last week peddling their stupidity. Stupidity which is rivaled only by the Democrats, approached by college students, and surpassed by registered voters. Luckily however, the media saved the day. What would have been an otherwise dull event was spiced up (tell ya what I want, what I really really want...) by my favorite source of entertainment, the media. Between the Denver Post, the Greeley Tribune, a letter to the editor, the Fort Collins Coloradoan & the UNC Mirror I managed to find various different counts of how many protesters were on hand to oppose the evils of Gingrich / Schaeffer. The numbers were as follows: 100, 75,over 70,a range of 40 to 80, approximately 40, and 31. Let the games begin.
Chris Cobler, managing editor of the Greeley Trib wrote a column in response to the reader who wrote in pointing out that there were only 31 people at the protest. Headline reads: "Estimates not evidence of media bias". Let's cut straight to the chase, maybe it's not evidence of bias, but I'm certain we can say that it is evidence of stupidity. Now, how did I get there from here? Follow me . . .
First stop, the scene of the crime. Let's say you are a reporter, one of these nonexistence unbiased reporters. You arrive at the scene. There are a number of people present. A quote from Mr. Cobler: "At such events, it is also difficult for reporters to know how many people are there to protest, how many people are there to protest the protesters, how many people are there for security and how many are there just to gawk." Let's break this down.
The Protesters. There are the loud people with signs, or the passive people who are blocking access to something. Possibly they are chained to an object, or lighting themselves on fire. In any event, protesters are usually easy to spot. Camouflaging yourself defeats the purpose of protesting, a fact even the dimmest individual with no life can figure out. On the subject of protesters, do you ever wonder what these people do that they have time to protest? Think about this, most protesting goes on during the middle of the day - when normal people are at work. Why aren't these people at work? Did you know that there are some people who are actually professional protesters? They get paid to show up at your event, chant & carry a placard.
The Protesters of the Protesters. These are the loud people with the signs bearing slogans which are opposing the slogans on the signs of the protesters. The POTP and the P are usually in groups apart from each other, often facing each other, and trading insults to and fro.
Security. They tend to wear uniforms. Even without uniforms they tend to be evident. They are the people watching the protesters very closely.
The Gawkers. They are the ones gawking. This is hard I know.
Try this experiment. Turn on your TV. Pick a random station. Turn the volume all the way down. Now watch the screen. How long does it take you to figure out what is going on? Not long. Change the channel. Try it again. Go thru a few more channels. How long does it take to figure out the plot? A few minutes at the most. Go to the mall. Sit down & watch people as the eat or sit on benches or shop. How long does it take to figure out what their relationships are? Can you tell which ones are lovers, brothers, sisters, parents, friends, reluctant companions & enemies? Sure you can. How can you do all these magical things? Because 1) you are brighter than a journalist and 2) people exhibit body language, facial expression, voice tonality.
Back to our protest. It seems to me the logical thing to do in a situation like this is make your count, and give the time you made it. For example "I made a count of the protesters at 3pm and I was able to clearly distinguish 32 people who were protesting the evil Republicans. There were 4 other people who were moving about in the crowd of gawkers whom I believed to be associated with the protesters." Now how hard is that?
Here's another one. Ever notice how sometimes the media gives you numbers in percentages, sometimes in whole numbers? Ever wonder why? It's a method of inflating or deflating your perceptions regarding the information. For instance, when you hear that 100 protesters showed up (for the sake of this point let's use the largest of the estimates) that sounds pretty impressive. Wow, 100 people. Gee wiz . . . What if we put that in the form of a percentage. What if you hear that 0.00165 percent of the population (based on a population of 60536 which I got from 1990 census figures - certainly there are more people now, but that is of no matter to make my point) of Greeley showed up to protest? Now what kind of impact do you get?
This is why the media (and government for that matter) in some cases use real numbers, in other cases use percentages. How many of you remember a few years ago when the media breathlessly told us the news: "AIDS has risen by 50% in heterosexual women while among homosexual men it has only increased by 5%". The purpose, to scare us into believing that AIDS is running wild among the heterosexual, non drug using public (a prediction which has been made year after year after year, yet still has not actually occurred).
But let's look at how these percentages arise. I am far to lazy to dig up the actual numbers, but we don't need them to prove my point, it's all math. Lets use small, easy, round numbers for our example. Lets say that in the first year there are 10 heterosexual women with AIDS and 10,000 homosexual men with AIDS. Now in the second year there are 15 heterosexual women with AIDS and 10,500 homosexual men with AIDS. Now if you look at these two numbers, where would you think the most AIDS cases are occurring? Probably in homosexual men. But, put them in percentage form. Certainly, there is a 50% increase among the women and a 5% increase among the men, thus making you think the problem is in the first group, not the second.
Interested in how this works? Read the book "How To Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff (published by W. W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-31072-8). You will be amazed at what you are being asked to believe.
Do you begin to see? The media is bias. They put the numbers (which may have no substance to start with) in whatever form will make their cause look good. If I were reporting on the protesters (let's assume for a moment that I have no life & I would actually do this) I would put the number in the percentage form, in order to make the idiots look like idiots. The difference here is that I do not claim to be unbiased. Nor do I claim to be a defender of the 1st Amendment.
Let's be honest, if you took the amendments and mixed 'em up, most journalist couldn't tell you which one was the 1st Amendment. These people can't count.