The lying by omission media thread

[wherebee]

So - the mainstream media is very good at lying by ommission.  Not making up fake facts (so called fake news) but leaving out key bits of known facts so the reader cannot make a logical assessment of the truth.  I thought a thread on HPC to track these would be good.  I'll kick off:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/07/eat-dont-pay-120-diners-flee-spanish-hotel-with-2200-bill-unpaid 

Notice the way the Guardian leave out the fact that the diners were Romanian, which has been reported by other news outlets.  Why would you leave this fact out if you were reporting the news honestly?  Cunningly, they mention the arrest of a 'man from Romania', which enables presumably to rebut any accusations of a cover up.

[wherebee]

Second example - the Telegraph selectively using statistics.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/robust-asylum-system-neednt-rely-detention-vulnerable-women/

The chart on migration runs from 2007-2016 and suggests that migration bumbles along at those levels.  Instills in the reader a sense of 'oh well, it's just how things are'.

But what if you look further back?

ONS figures

It clearly shows a massive ramping up since the 1990's.  Lying by omission.

[Automotive Engineer]

luggenpresse

[billybong]

2 hours ago, wherebee said:

Second example - the Telegraph selectively using statistics.  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/robust-asylum-system-neednt-rely-detention-vulnerable-women/

The chart on migration runs from 2007-2016 and suggests that migration bumbles along at those levels.  Instills in the reader a sense of 'oh well, it's just how things are'.

But what if you look further back?

ONS figures

It clearly shows a massive ramping up since the 1990's.  Lying by omission.

Indeed - lots of the media's charts are presented to mislead like that.

Another trick is to show a chart with the last few years data missing.

[One-percent]

Another trick with charts is to leave out the key so that it is impossible to interpret and understand what the chart is attempting to show.  I'm not sure though whether this is deliberate or just rank incompetence and poor reporting 

[billybong]

and charts having a misleading datum line making it look at first glance as if the chart originates at zero instead of at much bigger figure.

[Agentimmo]

When I was a lad at school many many moons ago,  our maths teacher taught us stats and how charts were usually designed to lie. Multiple ways of presenting data to deliver your message.  The objective wasn't to show the "truth".

I've always treated charts etc in the media with suspicion.  Maybe kids need to be reminded of this during their school years?

[canbuywontbuy]

All media outlets when they report on GDP growth without comparing it to net borrowing.  This is like a company boasting about increased revenue when they're net borrowing in an unsustainable manner, and it's the massive amount of borrowing that's producing the GDP growth.  Greece's GDP was growing in the years before their economic crash, but it was only growing through unsustainable borrowing.  Now their GDP is shrinking and they are stuck fast in a multi-year depression.  GDP growth is vanity, structural surplus* is sanity.

* or at least, sustainable borrowing is sanity.

[rahhhh]

7 minutes ago, canbuywontbuy said:

All media outlets when they report on GDP growth without comparing it to net borrowing.  This is like a company boasting about increased revenue when they're net borrowing in an unsustainable manner, and it's the massive amount of borrowing that's producing the GDP growth.  Greece's GDP was growing in the years before their economic crash, but it was only growing through unsustainable borrowing.  Now their GDP is shrinking and they are stuck fast in a multi-year depression.  GDP growth is vanity, structural surplus* is sanity.

* or at least, sustainable borrowing is sanity.

GDP per capita is the main omission. In an extreme example; if a population doubles, but gdp goes up by 50%, that's an increase in gdp of 50% but a decrease in gdp per capita. 

[wherebee]

11 minutes ago, canbuywontbuy said:

All media outlets when they report on GDP growth without comparing it to net borrowing.  This is like a company boasting about increased revenue when they're net borrowing in an unsustainable manner, and it's the massive amount of borrowing that's producing the GDP growth.  Greece's GDP was growing in the years before their economic crash, but it was only growing through unsustainable borrowing.  Now their GDP is shrinking and they are stuck fast in a multi-year depression.  GDP growth is vanity, structural surplus* is sanity.

* or at least, sustainable borrowing is sanity.

Cadbury - can you find an example?  i'd like this thread to be peppered with real examples people can refer to later...

[rahhhh]

Quite right on gdp being a crap measure. GDP per capita (person) better. But even better would be gdp minus government spending per capita.

Government spending is roughly half of gdp from memory

[rahhhh]

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/022415/worlds-top-10-economies.asp

uk 5th best

http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp-capita.php

uk 21st

[canbuywontbuy]

1 hour ago, rahhhh said:

GDP per capita is the main omission. In an extreme example; if a population doubles, but gdp goes up by 50%, that's an increase in gdp of 50% but a decrease in gdp per capita. 

Good point - it's been said that the UK has been "immigrating" its GDP figures over the last 10 years.  I can well believe that demand (esssentially GDP per capita) is falling in the UK, but that adding an extra 500,000 consumers a year to the population has kept aggregate GDP (GDP figures) in the black.

[canbuywontbuy]

1 hour ago, wherebee said:

Cadbury - can you find an example?  i'd like this thread to be peppered with real examples people can refer to later...

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38755242

(just a random example, hundreds out there)

No mention of net borrowing from the UK government in 2016 - circa £70Bn net borrowed, government figures of £49Bn from April 2016 to end of December 2016 > http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-debt

No mention of 500,000 more consumers added to the population in 2016.

So the BBC article states that GDP in the UK grew by 2% in 2016, but it doesn't say the UK government had to add circa £70Bn to the national debt and add 500,000 new consumers to make that 2% gain happen. 

 

[200p]

6 hours ago, Agentimmo said:

When I was a lad at school many many moons ago,  our maths teacher taught us stats and how charts were usually designed to lie. Multiple ways of presenting data to deliver your message.  The objective wasn't to show the "truth".

I've always treated charts etc in the media with suspicion.  Maybe kids need to be reminded of this during their school years?

Well, my English teacher taught us that all media has an agenda. She brought all the newspapers in, and told us about looking past the headline, and seeing who wrote it and why.

At 15 I was astounded that the newspapers could be so biased.

This was nearly 25 years ago - I am not sure that they are so analytical today with the hard left infiltration in education?

[wherebee]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/01/asylum-seeker-fights-for-life-after-hate-attack-in-london

 

Here we go - Guardian again.

No description of the attackers to help catch them.  Making the reader think it was a white on afghan attack. Mention that they headed off 'in the direction of' a pub. 

But - the attackers were seenby a number of witnesses.  No descriptions at all?

I would bet 1000 pounds it's not native english.  The line by the local politician almost gives it away... "He added that Croydon was a diverse community and generally had “very good relations between people of different backgrounds”."

 

Lying, lying, press again.

[200p]

I think the media have always been selective. It's just that it is easier to verfiy the articles now.

30 years ago, you had to buy two different newspapers to verify the articles.

[pl1]

Well done Wherebee, I'm pleased I'm not the only one to have noticed this. However ommision of entire news stories, in my view (usually because it doesn't fit a news organisations particular narrative) is much more dangerous then so-called fake news. I have caught the BBC doing this numerous times AND IT'S POLAR OPPOSITE i.e OVERPLAYING news stories that fit their narrative.

The GOOD NEWS is you can see if this is happening now thanks to Google & the number of stories the BBC do not run is high.

If you suffix :site bbc.co.uk to your search string and look up stories that many other outlets have run you will get many "zero results found". Do the same search string and suffix site:thesun.co.uk or reuters.com to confirm. It's shocking. I'm not going to mention names, out of respect to the victims family, but there was a paritcularly bad story in Germany from last year of a murder & the BBC did NOT run it at all, the filter got back zero results found. Many other outlets did. Yet the BBC will run many, many stories from different countries so it cannot use this as an excuse.

Try the Google filter & shame some outlets.

[shindigger]

13 hours ago, wherebee said:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/01/asylum-seeker-fights-for-life-after-hate-attack-in-london

 

Here we go - Guardian again.

No description of the attackers to help catch them.  Making the reader think it was a white on afghan attack. Mention that they headed off 'in the direction of' a pub. 

But - the attackers were seenby a number of witnesses.  No descriptions at all?

I would bet 1000 pounds it's not native english.  The line by the local politician almost gives it away... "He added that Croydon was a diverse community and generally had “very good relations between people of different backgrounds”."

 

Lying, lying, press again.

Im watching this story like a hawk. The hysteria is all over the usual networks, from the usual suspects, and hand wringers.

The Standard seemingly reported that the attackers were also asylum seekers, but that story seems to have melted away. We'll see.

This is all Brexit and Farages fault apparently... Give me ******ing strength.

[wherebee]

Day 2 = still no mention of the attackers.  

This will be very interesting to track.  Could go either way -  if white attackers, a slow reveal to allow the full anti-racist screaming to start; if non white, a disappearance from the media as the court date apporaches.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/01/teenage-asylum-seeker-critically-hospital-brutal-gang-attack/

[LittlePig]

13 hours ago, wherebee said:

Day 2 = still no mention of the attackers.  

This will be very interesting to track.  Could go either way -  if white attackers, a slow reveal to allow the full anti-racist screaming to start; if non white, a disappearance from the media as the court date apporaches.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/01/teenage-asylum-seeker-critically-hospital-brutal-gang-attack/

Pictures of suspects posted https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/03/three-people-wanted-by-police-over-croydon-asylum-seeker-attack#img-1

[ccc]

Well that's no great surprise. These unnecessary delays just give these people more time to try and work out a way of this. (If they are the people involved of course). This PC nonsense is literally putting people's lives at risk.

[Riedquat]

On 09/03/2017 at 6:37 AM, 200p said:

Well, my English teacher taught us that all media has an agenda. She brought all the newspapers in, and told us about looking past the headline, and seeing who wrote it and why.

At 15 I was astounded that the newspapers could be so biased.

This was nearly 25 years ago - I am not sure that they are so analytical today with the hard left infiltration in education?

A good chunk of my GCSE history was like that. It was 20th century stuff so plenty of media about the events (mostly Cold War). Typically it was along the lines of "here's a bunch of sources (newspaper articles, letters, whatever, from various people and countries) about a certain event, use them to say what you think happened and why you accept which ones as being more reliable for various aspects of the event." IMO that made that subject a pretty important one; the sad thing was that it was optional (had to choose history or geography, or both and losing some lunch times).

[Senny Pijama]

On 02/04/2017 at 3:15 PM, pl1 said:

t there was a paritcularly bad story in Germany from last year of a murder & the BBC did NOT run it at all, the filter got back zero results found.

What was the story?

[billybong]

On 3/8/2017 at 7:07 PM, wherebee said:

So - the mainstream media is very good at lying by ommission.  Not making up fake facts (so called fake news) but leaving out key bits of known facts so the reader cannot make a logical assessment of the truth.  I thought a thread on HPC to track these would be good.  I'll kick off:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/07/eat-dont-pay-120-diners-flee-spanish-hotel-with-2200-bill-unpaid 

Notice the way the Guardian leave out the fact that the diners were Romanian, which has been reported by other news outlets.  Why would you leave this fact out if you were reporting the news honestly?  Cunningly, they mention the arrest of a 'man from Romania', which enables presumably to rebut any accusations of a cover up.

Whether it's intentional or not (likely intentional) the cursory or headline reader might initially think the offending diners were British - as it's a British newspaper with a mainly British readership and without reading the rest of the article go away with that idea.

 Indeed it's not until you get into the body of the article that they mention that one of the diners was Romanian.