Shades of truth
HAS THIS EVER happened to you? You read a newspaper or magazine account of the industry you’re in, and you wonder if the reporter is talking about the same one. You forget it. As soon as the next issue appears, and it’s someone else’s industry, you gobble up the “facts” as gospel.
I’m not saying that journalists are prevaricators, or dumb, only that they shade the truth to suit their own purposes. Their motivation is usually to deliver a dramatic story line when the truth is more complex, or less dramatic. As a service to readers, I will outline four common shadings of truth.
Floating truth. Suppose you read that 12 people died from eating blowfish sashimi in the past year. According to the Blowfish Association, eating blowfish must be safe because the number of deaths is low. After all, didn’t 3,160 people die from choking on objects, 41,893 from car accidents and 529 from falling in their bathtubs and such? ;
The number 12, however, is floating without context. Did 12 people die out of 1 million who ate blowfish sashimi? Or did 12 people die out of the 13 who ate blowfish sashimi? For context one needs both the numerator (number of people who died) and the denominator (number of people who ate), and the fractions (numerator/denominator) for the other causes of death.
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