Why do newspapers lie?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just put out an uncredited editorial against the NRA boycott of ConocoPhillips. Full of scare quotes and numbers. The only problem is that truth they leave out.
The National Rifle Association has called for a boycott of ConocoPhillips because the energy company has dared to insist on its right to keep its workers safe.
Like many other employers, ConocoPhillips bars its employees from bringing firearms onto the work site, even if the weapon is kept locked in the employee’s car in the workplace parking lot. It’s a wise move, given that 487 people were shot to death at work in 2003, the latest year for which numbers are available. Those gunfire fatalities accounted for more than three-quarters of all the homicides on work sites that year
Now I found this link at KeepandBearArms.com. The links are published each day early, and yet by 7:30AM as I write this the internet has already shown the truth, and it isn’t in this article.
Whoa there- “487 people were shot to death at work in 2003” Were do these numbers come from????
I quick yahoo search of “Workplace shootings” bring this up as the second hit:
LINK EDITED TO MAKE IT SMALLERIt is a press release from www.handgunfree.org that states:
“Handgun-Free America has found that workplace shootings continue to be on the rise in America, according to early 2004 data. Data from the first half of 2004 show that there were 26 incidents of workplace shootings by the end of June, compared with 5 similar incidents in 2003.”The local library should start filing newspapers in the fiction section
And this one
From occupationalhazards.com
Workplace Shootings Responsible for 290 Deaths in Past Decade – 06/22/2004A new report released by Handgun-Free America has found that in the last decade (1994-2003), there were 164 workplace shootings in America, with a total of 290 people killed and 161 wounded.
According to the report, from 2002 to 2003, the number of workplace shootings increased from 25 to 45 and the number of victims killed in workplace shootings increased from 33 to 69.
Gee it took 10 seconds to look that up. Why can’t a newspaper.
So by 7:30 in the morning two people showed in just minutes of real research that the newspapers numbers do not hold water.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:19 am
Well, you know something like 76% of statistics are completely made up anyway.
August 6th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
Why do newspapers lie?
Because the truth is boring.
August 6th, 2005 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for a good “bad example” to use in a “numeracy” lecture to journalism students. That 487 figure is not made up — it’s straight from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (see the report below).
http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0192.pdf
But its accuracy is irrelevant. Notice the wording, “487 people were shot to death at work”: That total apparently includes every police officer, cab driver, bank teller, pawnbroker and quicky-mart employee shot and killed “at work,” whether the shooter was a fleeing criminal, disgruntled customer, armed robber — or someone in a more relevant (but much smaller) category like “angry employee” or “fed-up manager.”
In this case I doubt that better stats would change readers’ minds (or the editorial board’s collective opinion) about issues like gun ownership, workers’ rights, or corporation/employer rights. Badly-chosen or misleadlingly-applied stats certainly don’t help.
August 6th, 2005 at 7:35 pm
Yeah, the 487 number likely includes gas station attendents who were murdered by robbers.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:03 pm
I’m sure it was mostly unarmed gas station attendants, taxi drivers, pizza delivery persons, etc., who were shot by robbers.
Anyway, if someone wants to shoot fellow employees, they only have to bring a gun to work once. The “no guns in the parking lot” rule does nothing to stop that. It actually makes the work site more dangerous, because it ensures no one can shoot back.
August 7th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
It’s obvious the liberals are out of new ideas, or even old ones that work. We now enter the twilight zone where they just start making it up. Like Dan Rather did in 1994 with the original AW ban, if the gun isn’t scary eneough, improvise — If the stats don’t fit your argument, change the stats.
August 8th, 2005 at 9:15 am
“487 people were shot to death at work in 2003”
I find that figure amazing. You would think from all the media coverage of shootings at Convenience Stores and Gas Staions that this number would be in the tens of thousands. 487 people is absolutely miniscule. It shows that our workplaces are very safe places indeed and that this “crisis” is largely a manufactured one. I suspect many more people die on the way home after drinking too much at the office party then get shot at work.