Oops! We Lied!
May 5th, 2004 | by Craig |In this AP story, the Food Marketing Institute asserted that the high oil prices were forcing consumers to choose gasoline over food.
The first paragraph states baldly, “For financially pressed consumers, it’s coming down to a choice between spending on gasoline or groceries, and gasoline is winning, a food industry analysis finds.”
That’s a pretty stark assertion, wouldn’t you say?
Well, it turns out not to be the case. Quote: “The institute said it had no evidence that consumers were choosing to spend less for food in order to pay for gasoline.”
Notice that the AP highlights this as a “clarification,” rather than a “correction” or a “retraction.”
I wonder how that one slipped by. You don’t suppose someone had an agenda, do you?
Naaaaah. Couldn’t be.
4 Responses to “Oops! We Lied!”
By David Crisp on May 6, 2004 | Reply
Craig,
I would be very surprised if this error involved any agenda. AP has its faults, but deliberately misreading survey results isn’t typically one of them. Probably the reporter saw that the survey was from a food marketing group, saw that it said that gas prices were affecting spending and made the intuitive leap to a conclusion that people who couldn’t afford gas weren’t buying food. It’s a careless but logical error and probably not malicious.
By Craig on May 6, 2004 | Reply
David–
I respectfully disagree. While it may not have been deliberate in the sense of, “Oh! Let’s blame the oil companies for people choosing to go hungry,” the conclusion certainly seems to belie an agenda.
You state, “Probably the reporter saw that the survey was from a food marketing group, saw that it said that gas prices were affecting spending and made the intuitive leap to a conclusion that people who couldn’t afford gas weren’t buying food.” In other words, he made a conclusion on the study based on his own conceptions and biases, rather than actually reading the crazy thing. There’s a world of difference in saying that people are choosing gasoline over food, than saying that oil prices are affecting consumer spending overall.
To my way of thinking, if you’re going to write a story about the survey, wouldn’t it be incumbent upon you to actually read it and see what the conclusion is, rather than making a “logical but careless error?”
When the error is this egregious, I have to wonder why it was passed along without question or skepticism. My guess is that because the “conclusion” fit in nicely with someone’s preconceived notions.
By Straight up on May 7, 2004 | Reply
Where are you going with this? Oh wait, this is a textbook example of the Archer Daniels Midland Gestapo trumping Exxon Secret Police.
Someone certainly has an agenda; its just too bad you can’t see it.
By David Crisp on May 8, 2004 | Reply
Craig, Reporters certainly ought to read studies they write about, but those AP folks crank an awful lot of copy in a very short time. Even if the error resulted from unconscious biases, that doesn’t indicate an agenda. And the story wasn’t passed along without question or skepticism. Lots of people questioned it, including Rush Limbaugh. Hence the correction.