I like to point out media stories that misinform readers. Check out this paragraph in a story by Ken Alltucker.
Metro Phoenix has fewer days of bad smog and year-round soot but its air still ranks among the most polluted in the nation, according to the American Lung Association.
This story ran on A1 above the fold accompanied by a scary picture of a hazy skyline. Naturally, if you didn't take a lot of time to analyze the story, you would conclude that it is bad news. If the story were simply written as a straight news story, it would say "Phoenix Air Quality Improves." However, there are several tricks in the story that give you a false impression. I've already alluded to the first trick; the photograph of dirty air accompanies an article about improved air quality. If you were to read the first paragraph and look at the picture, you would think that the air is bad.
The second trick is to tell the story from the perspective of the American Lung Association. Why not simply quote EPA statistics about the air quality in metro Phoenix? Because then the article would say that the air is cleaner than it has been in decades.
Notice that the American Lung Association isn't described? Now check out this article about the Goldwater Institute wining an injunction against the Phoenix police union.
The union also lashed out at the Goldwater Institute, calling the conservative think-tank’s legal actions “nothing more than a thinly veiled union-busting tactic falsely cloaked in the guise of saving taxpayer money.”
Notice that Goldwater is a "conservative think-tank" but the American Lung Association is just, well, the American Lung Association. But the Lung Association is certainly as liberal as Goldwater is conservative. Furthermore, the Lung Association raises money in order to lobby for cleaner air. In addition to being liberal, they have a financial incentive to exaggerate poor air quality and they are certainly a less credible source than the EPA or the County Air Quality Department.
So why not disclose their bias or their financial conflict? Or even better, why not quote a neutral agency? Why take an article about improving air quality and tell it from the perspective of a liberal lobbying group that questions air quality in order to get funding? And if the paper is not going to identify liberal groups, why label the conservative ones? There's a word for that...let me see, tip of my tongue..."Bias." That's right, I've heard of that.
Here's another trick, notice how the first paragraph describes the air? It concedes that the air is better, but it "still ranks among the most polluted in the nation." That's a clinic in manipulation. Notice that the Lung Association doesn't compare the air to what it used to be, it compares the air to other places. That means that even though the air throughout the country is getting cleaner, Phoenix can still be called "among the worst". You see that trick all the time. That's why K-12 funding increases and Arizona still ranks 48th. Well, if all the states are spending more, what does it mean if we stay the same? Why not report that our spending in real dollars is increasing.
There's a corollary of the ranking trick. Schools, for example, like to say that their percentage of the state's budget is falling. That doesn't mean that they are getting less money, it means that other budget items (generally health care) are rising faster. However, reporters use those statistics as a way to hide facts like the air is getting cleaner, or K-12 funding is rising in real terms.
However, in this case Ken Alltucker's use of the ranking trick is even more obvious. That's because the poor ranking theme is actually self debunking. Here's the second paragraph.
The association’s annual air-quality report, issued Wednesday, ranked Phoenix as the 18th most-polluted metropolitan region as measured by year-round particle pollution. The Phoenix area ranked No. 7 last year and No. 2 in 2011.
So we went from number 2 to number 7 and now we are number 18. That means that even though the air in the entire country is getting cleaner, our air is getting cleaner even FASTER than the rest of the country. So even using the Lung Associations bogus comparison trick, we are improving.
This ranking trick is further enhanced by the word "particle" which is a technical term for a specific type of pollution and happens to be Phoenix's worst problem. Phoenix's ranking on other measures is even better, but then the story would be about how clean Phoenix's air is when compared to the rest of the nation.
Here's my favorite trick in the article. I know I sound picky here, but this is effective because it's so subtle. Good writers know that you can't say "one of the most". That's because "most" like "best" is a superlative. There's only one "most" just like there's only one "dirtiest" or "best." Reporters know that they shouldn't use "among the most" but it's such an effective way to take a city that's 18th and define it as "worst." I would like to finish 18th in a race and be called the "fastest." Or maybe I'm "among the fastest."
The unbiased story is that Phoenix still has some problems, but our air quality is getting better every year. It's cleaner than it was last year and it's much cleaner than it was 15 or 20 years ago. And even with the population growth, the air certainly MUCH cleaner than it was 30 or 40 years ago. In fact, it's getting cleaner at a faster rate than the rest of the country's air is getting cleaner.
Naturally, if you read that article, you wouldn't understand that the air is cleaner. That's because you are not supposed to.