Headline overstatement

Sometimes newspaper headline writers make it too easy for people to generalize about "the media". A case in point is a headline in today's Star Tribune: "Consumer fury forcing banks to kill debit fees".

Are all consumers furious? Are those consumers who have withdrawn funds "furious" or just annoyed? How many consumers actually withdrew funds? How many sent letters or made calls of annoyance? None of this quantitative data was in the article. The closest is "cited customer feedback".

Of course, if even one percent withdrew funds that would probably get the banks' attention.

The problem is that space doesn't allow easy full-disclosure. Let's see: "Abnormal withdrawal rate kills bank debit fees", "Numerous customer complaints lead banks to kill debit fees", or "Widespread press coverage leads banks to kill debt fees".

"The Media" is biased, but not the way many think it is

"The Media" is some mythical beast devouring the minds of people with slanted information.  Slanted is often in the mind of the complainant.  Too often the charge is "The Media" is "too liberal".  I've observed "too liberal" often means "The Media" doesn't emphasize a supposedly "conservative" view sufficiently according to the view of the complainants.

I think "The Media" gives too much coverage to views of all kinds that are based more on emotion than on fact, irrespective of where on the "political spectrum" they may be.

"The Media" reinforces the emotional impact of its coverage with a different, more worrisome bias.  A bias towards economy of words and away from nuance.  Just think of some of the headlines:

Angry voters
Consumers hold tight to their wallets
Investors were buoyed/dejected by …
Americans think…

These headlines convey "all voters", "all consumers", "all investors", or "all Americans" are acting as one.  What we rarely know is if the implied "all" should be replaced by "most", "many", or "some".  Sometimes we can read deep into an article that a poll claims that 45% of respondents answered with view A, 40% answered with view B, and 15% had no opinion.  That certainly doesn't justify a headline "People hold view A".

Oh, yeah!  It's probably even more problematic.  Few polls admit how many people hung up without responding.

For more of my rants on generalization, see "General Ization Battles Truth".