Numbers v. Opinions

This is really weak reporting from The New York Times:

But rallies, even daylong ones, are no way to seal the border. The Obama administration insists that its statistics show that significant financing increases in the federal Border Patrol have helped bring down crime at the border and make the smuggling of immigrants and drugs harder than ever.
But the activists who gathered Sunday had a decidedly different take. The border, in their view, is still far too easy to get across and has become so dangerous that some of them brought their sidearms for protection. Organizers urged participants to leave rifles in their cars.

There's been a fair amount of reporting by law-enforcement people, such as the attorney general of Arizona, the FBI and others, saying crime is down. Some numbers might be open to interpretation but generally they're pretty factual. To write this off as simply a debate between the Obama administration and people standing alongside a fence, is very poor, not what I expect from the Times.

Turn Down the Heat

When the restrained folks at the National Weather Service call you out, maybe you've gone too far. We've all watched TV weather people go off the edge, repeatedly, with each storm but a lot of the over-the-top language is making it into print. And have you noticed how much more coverage and accompanying hysteria we get from TV for an East Coast storm  than a comparable--or far worse--storm in the Midwest or northern states?

On Tuesday, 48 hours before the storm was to hit, Accuweather called it "hurricane-like," a "monster," and a "powerful storm of historical proportions" that would wreak havoc from Pennsylvania to Maine and by Wednesday was using the term "snowicane."
That prompted a stern response from National Weather Service meteorologist Craig Evanego.
"It's almost inciting the public, inciting panic," he said.
The Weather Channel called the hurricane talk "bad meteorology."
Accuweather senior meteorologist and director of forecasting operations Ken Reeves called the NWS criticism "unfounded" and said there is nothing wrong in using language that gets people's attention when the situation calls for it.

Yes, and there's nothing wrong with, say, just reporting the facts and stop trying to sell the momentousness of the story so that you can boost ratings or get attention for yourself.

Blurring the Lines

TV continues to confuse so-called expert opinion with reporting. The latest is the hire of Marcia Clark, who prosecuted O.J. Simpson for murder but saw him acquitted, and is now reporting for "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Insider."


Marcia Clark Now Reporting on O.J.
By LYNN ELBER
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Twelve years after Marcia Clark heard jurors pronounce O.J. Simpson innocent of murder, the former prosecutor carried her enduring guilt into another courtroom with the ex-football star.

This time, Clark was the most startling member of the media pack covering Simpson's Las Vegas felony arrest. As legal correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Insider," she had the chance to tell the world what she thinks of Simpson — and she used it.

"Just seeing him back in court again, facing charges. I can't believe it. It's just surreal," she said in an interview with The Associated Press. "He skated on two murder charges, and he managed to get out of other charges of much lesser gravity since then. How did he manage to get himself back in trouble again?

"How stupid do you have to be?"

On the air, Clark's voice drips with more disgust. She dismissed Simpson's book, "If I Did It," as "hideous" and "all a lie." Indirectly addressing his girlfriend Christine Prody, a Nicole Brown-lookalike who stood by him in court Wednesday, Clark said: "It made me sick to my stomach. Do you not realize you could be next?"

Even with the elastic boundaries observed by TV entertainment news shows, Clark's history with Simpson makes her a unique figure — and, according to journalism experts, someone playing a questionable role by acting as reporter as well as analyst.


Previously on this topic

New News Conference

There's a "News Innovation Conference" coming up in New York in October but information on how to register and a schedule seems hard to find. The conference looks interesting but the promotion of it needs help.

10 Stories

The San Francisco Bay Guardian says we underreported, misrepresented or just plain missed these stories this year.

More on TNR and Beauchamp

The New Republic fires back on the Scott Beauchamp story. Earlier.

This isn't just a matter of whether Beauchamp's story is accurate. It's also a matter of whether a publication with an agenda will be able to take down an established magazine--whatever its political leanings, and I've not been fond of TNR in recent years--using innuendo and one-source, anonymous claims.

Paul McLeary at Columbia Journalism Review steps into the fray.