The Power of Language

#26
#26
cibai said:
Hang on a second, since when are reporters not allowed to use adjectives? For starters the results are startling, and there is empirical evidence to back that up. Calling the evidence startling makes no judgement as to if the report is accurate, only that it is significant. Secondly, how on earth is the phrase "Watch Bush dismiss the report" a bias, it doesn't even make an assertion! If you actually WATCH it does Bush not dismiss the report!?! If anything this report has a conservative bias becuase it spends most of the report exploring the methodology (because Bush does dismiss it) of a report that even if it is off by 25% percent is still 491,250 deaths. And yet the significance of that number gets overshadowed by a debate over if the the president dismissing the report. So Bush waves his hand and the rabbit disapears, and the media goes woooow. And all the conservative pundits say look at how liberal the media is!
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Sure adjectives can be used. But those statements imply (at least to me) that CNN believes the report (watch as the startling results are revealed) -

Sounds like a movie trailer for the next summer blockbuster!




When taken together it comes across as here's some new facts that Bush is dismissing out of hand.

Why not say - watch the findings of the study and watch Bush's reaction to the study?
 
#28
#28
The two statements (the two links to video files) when taken together have more of a suggestive power.

In particular, the first statement is more powerful in terms of setting a context.
 
#29
#29
But that is exactly my point, the debate is now about if the report is to believed or not.

I also don't understand your desire that the news not point out sailient facts about the significance of what it is covering. A false neutraliy is exactly that, false; the statements you desire tell nothing of the reality of the event, or of its significance. The numbers ARE startling and Bush DOES dismiss them. Why on earth should a reporter not report these realities??? Now if you want to talk about the ridiculousness of having video clips to "show" the results of a study then we've got something to talk about, but that has nothing to do with the bias of any reporter, but rather the fundamental bias of a culture weened on television and the artifice of the image.
 
#30
#30
volinbham said:
When taken together it comes across as here's some new facts that Bush is dismissing out of hand.
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And that is part of ridiculousness of this article, and why it bears a decidedly conservative slant. It is not the facts that are important, but the essence of the information they relate. Lets say the numbers are off by 50% even, that is still 100 times the number of people killed on 9-11. Yet this article makes the focus about the facts, largely because Bush has framed the argument in terms of the facts.
 
#31
#31
In particular, the first statement is more powerful in terms of setting a context.
:wha ? Should an article not set a context?
And secondly, should a reporter pretend that there are not conclusions to be drawn, or that all conclusions are equal?
I think the article gives the Bush side of the argument far more than its fair share of attention, so much so that the actual context of the story gets lost, and that is that the report is startling and is significant.
 
#32
#32
It's not a desire for them to avoid pointing out salient facts.

It's simply the tone that statement creates. Certainly the particular single salient fact that one decides to present can set the tone. For the report, the chosen fact is that these results are startling as the core descriptor for the video link. Since the article acknowledges elsewhere that these numbers are vastly different than every other study on the same subject it begs the question of why not just saying watch as the results are revealed.

It's not a big deal, really just an observation I had when I read the article for the 3rd or 4th time. Again, when taken with the second video link wording it came across to me as saying we believe this, the results are of major importance and this guy is just dismissing them.
 
#34
#34
cibai said:
In particular, the first statement is more powerful in terms of setting a context.
:wha ? Should an article not set a context?
And secondly, should a reporter pretend that there are not conclusions to be drawn, or that all conclusions are equal?
I think the article gives the Bush side of the argument far more than its fair share of attention, so much so that the actual context of the story gets lost, and that is that the report is startling and is significant.
Click to expand...

I'll take the last one first -- the report is only startling and significant if it is sound. That is in question not only due to methodology but also due to the lack of consistency between it's findings and those from multiple other sources.

Further, I'm not referring to the story but rather the links to video clips (which I agree are ridiculous). The serve as mini-headlines. When joined they indicate that this is a major significant finding that Bush is simply dismissing. That is a particular perspective on the whole issue that suggests things are much worse in Iraq and Bush is in denial mode.
 
#37
#37
Would this headline be considered to have a particular viewpoint?

Results of Study Inconsistent with Existing Studies
 
#38
#38
What of the little issue here in GA with our Governor and his opinion of the AJC's headline on UGA's loss? Liberal bias? Bias against UGA?
 
#41
#41
volinbham said:
I'll take the last one first -- the report is only startling and significant if it is sound. That is in question not only due to methodology but also due to the lack of consistency between it's findings and those from multiple other sources.

Further, I'm not referring to the story but rather the links to video clips (which I agree are ridiculous). The serve as mini-headlines. When joined they indicate that this is a major significant finding that Bush is simply dismissing. That is a particular perspective on the whole issue that suggests things are much worse in Iraq and Bush is in denial mode.
Click to expand...

So if the actual number is 500,000 is it no longer startling or significant?
 
#42
#42
cibai said:
So if the actual number is 500,000 is it no longer startling or significant?
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The point is that if they have sampling error, it's not a matter of 500K vs 600K, it could just as likely be 60,000 as 600,000. A report of 60K would not be startling nor significant. Rather it would be in line with the other estimates and therefore not dismissed.
 
#43
#43
cibai said:
A viewpoint, yes. A bias, probably not. An undescriptive and therefore bad headline maybe.
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It is as descriptive as saying "startling".

And it does use one salient point from the story as the basis.

As an extreme example, you could refer to the Raelian's claim to have cloned a human as:

Watch the startling findings revealed! But you start to walk down the National Enquirer path. True, their (Raelian) findings/claims are startling. But the happen to be wrong.
 
#44
#44
But startling isnt a headline, it is an adjective describing a specific noun in a sentence in an article. I mean come on, there is absolutely no reason you are going to listen to that will change you mind, so I will stop trying, but "Watch the startling findings revealed!" are your words not the article's. The article's language shows no bias, yet since you are convinced it does, you can only see it through conservative colored glasses. You are also suggesting that the sampling error of the study is 90%!!!???
 
#45
#45
The actual quote from the article is Watch as the study's startling results are revealed. Again, I'm not referencing the full-text of the article but rather the mini-headline that links to the video.

As a final word from me on this - using startling to describe the findings implies one thing while using a word like inconsistent or unvalidated or questionable would imply something completely different. All these descriptors could be used to describe the study.

On to the sampling issue. I've gone through much of this in the other thread but here's a quickie.

MOE works off of the findings from the sample. Their results show that excess deaths represent 2% of the their sample. (289/12800)

YES - 2%
NO - 98%

Even with an MOE of 2%, the range for YES is now (0 - 4). Apply that to their projections and their confidence interval now shows anywhere from zero to 1.2 million excess deaths.

The mistake is applying the MOE to the projection (e.g. 655,000 +/- 2%). That ain't how it works.
 
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