Posted on 08/03/2007 5:47:17 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
There is a saying in the broadcast media, “If it bleeds, it leads.” That supposedly explains the ghoulish nature of TV news especially. But the wall-to-wall, anchors on the scene, coverage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, belies that theory. Five people are known dead, eight are missing. If all the missing are dead, that means 13 people have died in Minnesota.
Let’s make some quick comparisons. The Iraq War in five years is 310 times that total. But the number of Americans killed by illegal aliens here in the US, is even more than that. That is a relatively small number compared to several other, well-known events. D-Day, the invasion of France, saw 200 times that number in the first day, 5,530 times that for the whole Battle of Normandy. The taking of Iwo Jima in four days cost 450 times that number.
Go back to the bloodiest battle of the bloodiest war that America ever fought. The Battle of Antietam cost 303 times that number in a single day. Still, that was a picker compared to the most common form of premature death in the US, automobile accidents. That form of death cost about 3,100 times that number of deaths every year, year after year.
So, let’s make an accurate and important amendment in the TV news bromide: If it bleeds, it leads, provided there’s something obvious to point a camera at, and that the deaths serve an attack-the-government prejudice. There, glad I could be helpful.
When I was in a graduate program on public policy at American University, I had the privilege of meeting and talking with one of the giants of Political Science, the late, great Aaron Wildavsky. His primary interests were “comparative risk” and “marginal cost.” Both concepts are extremely important. Both apply to policy judgments in war and peace.
Comparative risk means simply, how does this human activity compare to all other major ones in risk of death? What is the most risky government activity in the US? It is serving as a local police officer. What is the most risky private activity? It is being a jockey in saddle horse races. Compared to these two, and compared to the top 100 activities, riding across a bridge, having it fail, drop you into a river and kill you, doesn’t even rate an asterisk on the chart.
Every time I discuss such subjects, I have to add this caveat. Every premature death of a single American is a tragedy for that person’s family. But when governments are setting public policy, there is no way to eliminate all such deaths. Policy should be set to save many lives, not to save one life at the expense of losing thousands of other lives.
And that brings us to marginal costs. Every year, a very small number of children die from allergies to peanuts and related products. Should peanut butter therefore be barred from every school lunch room in the nation? Or, should health officials provide best available information to the parents of such children, so it becomes their responsibility (and as they get older, the children themselves) to keep them safe?
While we are on that subject, one of the leading causes of accidental death for children but less than auto accidents, is drowning – not in swimming pools (rare) – but in buckets and bathtubs. There is no way to eliminate buckets and bathtubs, but a little more education of parents on how quickly toddlers can get themselves into serious trouble, could save thousands of lives. “I was only out of the room for a minute,” is frequently said at the scene of an accidental death of a child.
Competent public officials should always pay attention, as Professor Wildavsky so long urged, to the relative risks in various areas of public and private actions. Once leaders know the risks, they should spend larger amounts of scarce public dollars on activities where the lives saved per dollar spent are the greatest.
The problem, of course, is that public knowledge is driven by a sensationalist broadcast media. Therefore, voters who choose public officials are clueless about relative risk and marginal cost. That makes it very difficult for competent public officials to get elected, and reelected. Instead, voters who have been deceived by the media tend to support knee-jerk politicians who thoughtlessly follow the disaster du jour, just like TV news does.
What’s the result? More Americans will die of preventable costs. Isn’t that too high a cost to pay for sloppy journalism?
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He lives in the 11th District of North Carolina.
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John / Billybob
AND the hype and paranoia in American MSM has ripples across Mexico, as I’ve gotten many calls today in Mexico from concerned people wondering if their undocumented worker illegal alien non terroist money exporting family member might be safe, how far actually they want to know is San Francisco from Minneapolis.
Good column, Congressman. Down her in Houston, we have as many fatalities in the average traffic accident. BTW, thanks for penning editorials that appeal to Freepers.
The Democrat party has made a living ignoring “comparative risk” and “marginal cost.”
.. public knowledge is driven by a sensationalist broadcast media.
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What would Mencken say? ;-)
The medium IS the massage.
John / Billybob
John / Billybob
I put it to you that journalists will gleefully attack a manufacturer, or the police, or the military, or the water company - and that the common feature of the preferred targets is responsibility to a bottom line.If you are a fellow journalist, of course you get a pass - professional courtesy (and fear of retaliation, of course . . .). But you also are safe from journalistic attack so long as you do not attempt to gain credit for actually accomplishing something - and do not publicly come to the defense of those who do. Rather than (as journalists and like minded so-called "liberals" do) by criticizing those who do so.
That is why I find myself quoting Theodore Roosevelt's 1910 speech at the Sorbonne
There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities - all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affection of contempt for the achievements of others, to hide from others and from themselves in their own weakness. The rôle is easy; there is none easier, save only the rôle of the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds . . .
Journalists call journalists - and none other - "objective."
Journalists call those who are simpatico with journalists "progressive."
Journalists call those who are not simpatico with journalists "progressive."
Of course, assigning yourself and those who agree with you positive labels and assigning negative labels to those who disagree with you marks you not as objective but as highly subjective - and arrogant.
Outstanding !
That was the thesis, and why I posted it, however, the title of his book was The Medium Is The Massage. It was originally a mistake by the typesetter but McLuhan decided to leave it as is as kind of a proof of his point.
Journalists call journalists - and none other - "objective."
Journalists call those who are simpatico with journalists "progressive."
Journalists call those who are not simpatico with journalists "conservative."
John / Billybob
Thanks for the correction, I re-read the sentence and it still didn’t register as logical. Outstanding post c_I_c.
John, another outstanding essay unfolding from a GRRRREAT title. Thanks.
Good column, John. We need your reminders ... are you planning to visit or even participate in the Story Telling Festival this year?
What’s the result? More Americans will die of preventable costs. Isn’t that too high a cost to pay for sloppy journalism?Half the truth is often a great lie. - Benjamin FranklinIt is less frequent that journalists tell outright untruths than that they avoid mention of germane truths such as relative risk and marginal cost. All too frequently they thereby succeed in practicing on the credulity even of highly intelligent people. The half truth problem makes a mockery of the conceit that journalism is necessarily objective if it is not inaccurate. The rules of journalistic story selection - not only "if it bleeds, it leads" but "'Man Bites Dog,' not 'Dog Bites Man'" and "Always meet your deadline" - are not rules for telling the whole truth but entertainment imperatives. Apply those rules however dispassionately and systematically, and they will result in sensationalism rather than full information and considered judgment every time.
Broadcast journalism does indeed misdirect the public from the most important risks to the dramatic risks and from undramatic progress to the dramatic tragedy, thereby costing lives. But by attacking the people who get necessary things done it also promotes the "liberal" politicians who do likewise.Broadcast licensing is predicated on the idea that in exchange for accepting censorship of the unlicensed, we-the-people will be informed in the public interest by the licensees. Broadcast journalism has been promoted on that basis. But as you have pointed out and as I argue is inevitable in the system as it exists, broadcast journalism systematically misinforms the public by distraction and in significant ways by outright misinformation.
The Constitution was designed to work admirably in a milieu in which broadcasting and even telegraphy did not even exist. And that is Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate.
There is one exception to this rule.. The wholesale murder of babies(abortion)..
These stories get spiked unless one of the murderers get murdered..
Even Fox News is dramatizing the bridge accident to a fault.
John / Billybob
BTTT
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