A little over a year ago, I retired this blog with a final summary. But I just can't keep quiet about some of the craziness out there.
I know the news agencies thrive on picking and choosing what they tell us and then telling us in a way that supports their political narrative. That can be expected. But when they, apparently unwittingly, present real information in the form of misleading headlines, it appears someone is not thinking things through.
Recently CBS (and others) came out with this news story about inadequate seatbelt warnings. The headline reads, "47% of people killed were not wearing a seatbelt." This gives people who do not want to wear their seatbelts a perfect argument that 53% percent of people killed were wearing a seatbelt - very little difference. So what's the big deal? The headline is not only not persuasive, it can be turned on itself to draw the exact opposite conclusion.
What needs to be said is that about 10% of people choose not to wear their seatbelt, but people not wearing seatbelts account for almost half the people killed in auto accidents. That means your chance of dying are about nine times higher if you don't buckle up. That's quite a difference from the implied comparison of 47% to 53%!
With use of seatbelts actually declining in recent years, wasn't anybody at CBS paying attention to the possible misinterpretation of their message? Poorly presented news is little better than fake news.
