Non-neutral facts/stats…
Jack Shafer, in a Slate article posted late Friday, takes Matthew Miller to task for the portion of his 2-percent solution that asks newspapers to publish civic facts/stats at the bottom of the front page in order to raise awareness of America’s unmet needs.
The idea is rather simple: Use just two percent of the front page to publish a daily fact/stat of civic importance. For example: “42 million Americans are uninsured–80 percent in families with a full-time worker” or “2 million teachers need to be recruited in the next decade, while the average teacher salary is $40,000.”
Shafer uses his column to run down civic or public journalism, a professional movement to encourage journalists and news organizations to be more closely involved in finding solutions to public problems within their communities.
While I think we may criticize civic journalism (as we should criticize all journalism), I don’t think it’s quite the scourge Shafer would have us believe. There is much to recommend this movement. As a person who advocates greater civic participation and critical democratic participation, I’m encouraged by its implications. I can criticize Miller’s idea without making this about civic journalism.
Editors should refuse this idea because it smacks of editorializing on the front page (yes, I’m a traditionalist in this regard). Here’s why: Language use and statistics are not ideologically neutral. A fact/stat is not just a fact/stat because facts/stats are nearly always articulated in a socio-political context. Miller’s idea highlights this assertion and, in fact, is specifically aimed to take advantage of this phenomenon. Depending on the situation, to say that “42 million Americans are uninsured” is to make a value judgment even if one is not stated specifically. The whole point of his idea is to make a value judgment.
We may look, for example, to the rhetorical situation for the evaluation: Miller proposes publishing these facts/stats on front page of a newspaper. The facts/stats then take on added importance and significance because of this prominent placement. Further, such facts/stats leave out much of the argument and other facts/stats that may have bearing on the issues. Why this fact and not another? Why that statistic, and how was it determined? Placement on the front page then overshadows other facts/stats thus legitimizing certain facts/stats, and certain political positions or ideologies, over others.
Still further, journalists’ problems interpreting statistics are well documented. How many of us still believe that half of all marriages end in divorce because we see this falsehood repeated in the press? On this topic, I highly recommend A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper.
I happen to think Miller’s idea is a good one if we can negotiate different placement (i.e. different emphasis): on the editorial page.
Also on this topic: Read Jay Rosen –a cogent advocate for civic journalism. You may wish to read his book: What Are Journalists For?
Your comments, including “Language use and statistics are not ideologically neutral. A fact/stat is not just a fact/stat because facts/stats are nearly always articulated in a socio-political context,” brought to mind the daily “dropped-in” Bible verse that appears on the editorial page of The Kansas City Star. I don’t know how the verses are chosen, but I do know the Bible snippets are VERY different from Bible readings taken in context. While one could well argue that Bible verses are not appropriate in a daily newspaper, my own argument is that un-contextualized Bible “drop-ins” sometimes seem so bizarre that they do a disservice to the Christian movement that they ostensibly are promoting. Shafer’s suggestion about educating the public by dropping in social factoids might have similarly unintended consequences.