Anyone who follows print and broadcast news knows that journalists make a ton of mistakes. I don’t mean factual errors, although there are also plenty of those. I mean reporting mistakes, like failing to frame the question properly, failing to put the issue in context, failing to gather information from the right sources, failing to treat received information with the proper skepticism, focusing on an analysis of motives rather than of facts, etc… You especially notice this when the news is about something with which you are more familiar.
In case you have any doubts about the astounding frequency and magnitude of journalist errors, consider the claims that Toyota cars automatically and uncontrollably accelerate. There were hundreds of news reports that repeated these claims as if they were credible, promoting a mass hysteria about runaway cars. Toyota sales plummeted, they became the target of SNL ridicule, etc…
Now we hear that the Department of Transportation has investigated more than 2,000 cases of alleged automatic acceleration and could not find evidence to support any one of these claims. In these cases the throttle remained fully open and the brakes were not engaged. In other words, people were mistakenly pressing the accelerator while thinking it was the brake.
Anyone with half a brain and a reasonable amount of skepticism would have suspected that the driver was likely the least reliable part of a modern car and would have guessed that people were mistakenly pressing the gas. But very, very few of the news reports on this issue emphasized this likely explanation. Instead, most acted as if we lived in a John Grisham novel where evil corporations knowingly hide the defects of their products as they killand maime their customers to maximize profits. This does happen, but it is very, very rare. To treat these claims as evidence of real safety issues with cars was simply mistaken reporting.
This raises the question why reporters make so many mistakes like this. Is it that reporters:
a) lack the necessary critical faculties
b) are more interested in sensational stories than reliable information
c) have an ideology that makes them irrationally inclined to a John Grisham view of corporations
d) all of the above
(correction: Toyota was the one to investigate more than 2,000 cases, but their findings are so far the same as the US DOT from a smaller set of cases, which found: “The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.” )
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D- all of the above!
D – all of the above!
In Nevada, it seems a lot of journalists take statements from government officials at face value. The best example is the liberal Las Vegas Sun claiming we will have a $3 billion shortfall on a $6.5 billion budget.
Anyone with a brain would be able to conclude that this would mean the state would only take in $3.5 billion in general fund revenue for the next budget cycle. Right now the state is collecting about $5.5 to $5.6 so a drop to $3.5 billion over the next 2 years is ridiculous and improbable.
More recently that same paper took a more critical look at one gubernatorial candidate’s education plan by relying on government statements that were NOT cross examined carefully and a statement on vouchers from one political scientist at UNLV who has no background in education research on vouchers and no source to counter said professors claims. http://www.writeonnevada.com/2010/07/education-comparison-critiqued.html
I still would not buy a car with a flimsy-looking accelerator, regardless of the brand or origin.
D – All of the above
“I still would not buy a car…”
But you won’t pay a penny more, nor buy one big enough to accommodate a sturdier one.
What produces credulous journalists? I see three possibilities: somehow the profession turns normal people into nitwits who spout the anti-market, pro-government line, the profession attracts anti-market nitwits, or J-schools act as filters which pass anti-market mitwits. Of course, none of hese possibilities excludes any of the others.
One insidious and common instance of bias is the use of “to”, as in “a program to raise student achievement. “To: is a statement of intention, Intentions are invisible. If journalists were telepathic they would retire and become millionaires playing poker. I would like to see an analysis of the application of “to” versus “which X said was intended to”. In other words, when do journalists accept a statement of intention as fact and when do they, properly, report statements of intention as someone else’s say-so?
10 to 1 the difference would relate strongly to the employer of the speaker: state or non-profit versus corporate. Any takers?
I think you’re leaving out a couple of possible options (but the name-calling is more fun, I’m sure!)
e. you could have a perception bias that is masking the many good and complete stories about Toyota acceleration that were produced, because you’re interested in making a larger point;
f. there were stories that mentioned driver error, but because they didn’t stress that as strongly as you might have liked, you’re dismissing the story as overly credulous;
g. Reporters don’t have the resources of the DoT to conduct tests of 2,000 reports of acceleration, and so are unfortunately steered into a he-said/she-said situation on some stories (“Toyota says its cars are fine!” “This driver said his car was possessed!”)
Look, journalism is a highly imperfect business; I know, I’m in it. As long as humans are producing news reports, there will be mistakes. I am positive there were stories about Toyota’s situation that were overly credulous — but then, even Toyota was acknowledging there was a problem, right? Weren’t there some recalls involved in this?
I don’t think that reporters, any more than professors, generally lack critical thinking skills are solely driven by sensationalism, or are nitwits. We just produce work that is easy to dissect in the aftermath. I wish some of our more avid critics could try doing the job for a while! Unfortunately, not too many papers are hiring these days. 😦
Even if the journalists did have the results of the test, I bet more than half wouldn’t even understand the abstract.
Thanks for the comments, Christina, but I don’t think these additional explanations are compelling. First, I don’t think my perception of the tone of the reporting is distorted. If the media didn’t hype this phony-scandal, why did Toyota sales plummet? Why did Toyota become the butt of late night comedians’jokes? People got their information from a media that was overwhelmingly disseminating bad reporting.
Second, reporters don’t need access to labs to have good hunches about who and what to believe. What sounds more reasonable: runaway cars or driver error?
Third, I agree that all human endeavors are prone to error and I don’t think journalists are any more prone to mistakes than professors or many other professions demanding critical reasoning. But at the same time we should always be thinking about how to reduce those errors. Observing a wide-spread failure of many people in a profession should be viewed as an opportunity for that profession to reflect on how to do better. Similarly, the failure of whole language or other education fads should shame education academics into reflecting on how we can improve our efforts.
Christina, I share your inclination not to overgeneralize about how the media handled this story, but I do want to point out the following:
but then, even Toyota was acknowledging there was a problem, right?
No. Toyota wisely declined to rush to judgment on whether or not there was a problem. Instead, it decided to go find out whether or not there was a problem. The absence of an affirmative defense is not the same as a guilty plea.
Weren’t there some recalls involved in this?
That is part of how you find out whether or not there was a problem. It is not an admission that there was one. And that’s before we even broach the political/legal intimidation factor – with so many politicians and lawyers rushing to judgment, Toyota almost had to issue a recall even if they knew there was no problem.
I don’t think that reporters, any more than professors
Wow, talk about setting the bar low! 🙂
Christina-
It isn’t any more incumbent on you to apologize for the misdeeds of all journalists than it is for Jay to apologize for the sins of all professors working in Ed schools. Good thing too, because Jay could never finish if he had to start…
The he said/she said aspect of journalism can be very frustrating for analysts. Andy Rotherham describes this as journalists “measuring the thickness of contending piles of studies.”
A few years ago I read a fascinating article about the Columbia J-School, which had a new Dean and wanted students to understand statistics before getting a graduate degree. His take was that students from the nation’s most respected J-school should have the analytical skills as a BS detector.
The main point of the article was that this Dean faced a faculty revolt from a large faction of traditionalists professors…
Systematic bias in journalism (at least in education-related stories) may originate, in part, in each journalist’s need for authority. Unless a journalist reports breaking news from eyewitness accounts, (s)he will rely on authority. Otherwise, it’s “Albert Einstein said…but Joe Shmoe said…” with no credential assigned to either and no reason that the reader should prefer either. Academics come with built-in authority; school is all about certifying expertise (bogus as it may be).
You say, “Now we hear that the Department of Transportation has investigated more than 2,000 cases of alleged automatic acceleration and could not find evidence to support any one of these claims.” Reread the article. TOYOTA says that IT has investigated more than 2,000 cases. Quite a difference. The Department of Transportation is months away from its own report, again according to the article you cite.
Moreover, Toyota itself blamed not drivers but sticky gas pedals for the malfunctioning autos: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/30irwsx/business/la-fi-toyota-pedal30-2010jan30.
Lastly, here’s a snippet from Sunday’s Washington Post, detailing the blowback from Toyota to a Southern Illinois University professor who found a possible flaw in the electronics of a Toyota Avalon: “Two Toyota employees quickly resigned from an advisory board of the school’s auto-technology program, and the company withdrew offers to fund two spring-break internships.” And the company has admitted to knowing about the defect long before it came to light from others. Maybe not quite Grisham material, but hardly the innocent, well-intentioned corporate citizen.
So in an effort to show how shoddy is the current state of journalism you misreported the article you cited and misrepresented the entire situation. Mission accomplished.
From my experience: D – all of the above, plus one: E – Hubris, which when combined with (A) makes the sum diagnosis particularly intractable.
Paul, you are right that it was Toyota that had investigated 2,000 cases, not US DOT. But here is what US DOT found: “The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.”
In other words, the basic conclusion is unchanged.
And the fact that Toyota did recall and make some repairs does not suggest to me that those were causes of the crashes. The company was under enormous pressure from hysterical and misleading press reports to do something, anything to correct a problem which was almost certainly just driver error.
Speaking of errors, the WSJ may have messed up http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/15/report-wsj-unintended-acceleration-story-planted-by-toyota/
sources are called into question.
I don’t think you need a lab tests to suspect driver error. I’ll bet that the official report will confirm these leaked reports as well as my suspicion.