That don't make no sense...
It seems that the following is likely (I hope) to spur a correction, but not be run as a letter to the editor, so I'm printing it here. The original article is no longer available on line for free. It was covering a forum Planned Parenthood and others are holding to talk about helping teens, especially girls, deal with the contradictory and hyper-sexualized messages they get from popular culture.
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Dear Times Union editors,
Rick Clemenson's article "Media focus on sex a worry" (March 16) contains a ridiculous statistic that never should have made it past editors' bullshit detectors, let alone a fact-checker.
"The largest group of Internet porn viewers in 2005 were children ages 12-17, according to Family Safe Media, a company that helps parents filter Internet content," he wrote. That's a patently ridiculous claim. And, in fact, it appears to have been an error. The site from which that statistic came [edit: 3/30/08: Family Safe Media has fixed their site since this post was made.] was drawing its data from another site, TopTen Reviews, on which all of the data is the same, except for that item, which is listed as the much more believable 35-49 age group.
Not that the TopTen Review site itself is a good place to draw facts from either. As this article points out, the supposed sources for this data are not attached to specific numbers, just lumped in a large list at the end. The data contradicts itself internally. And some of it has mysteriously not changed over the past couple years. (Tell me the number of porn sites has not changed since last year. I mean, come on.) I would look on stats provided by the porn industry itself with similar skepticism, but their critiques of TopTen Review's methodology are completely valid.
There is enough hysteria about sex in this country without journalists pulling questionable statistics from companies making their living from frightening parents. Hyperbole like this distracts from the trickier to define, but very serious challenges, that the forum Clemenson was writing about is trying to address.
Sincerely,
Miriam Axel-Lute
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(It should be noted that having recently written "caper toss" instead of "caber toss" in an article, and having in the past let at least one mistake of the magnitude of the one above get into one of my articles, I know that I need to be careful about throwing stones. It was deliberate that I directed my letter at the editors and not the writer. I appreciate other people keeping me on my toes and think that it has made me more careful and more skeptical, and aim to return the favor.)
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Dear Times Union editors,
Rick Clemenson's article "Media focus on sex a worry" (March 16) contains a ridiculous statistic that never should have made it past editors' bullshit detectors, let alone a fact-checker.
"The largest group of Internet porn viewers in 2005 were children ages 12-17, according to Family Safe Media, a company that helps parents filter Internet content," he wrote. That's a patently ridiculous claim. And, in fact, it appears to have been an error. The site from which that statistic came [edit: 3/30/08: Family Safe Media has fixed their site since this post was made.] was drawing its data from another site, TopTen Reviews, on which all of the data is the same, except for that item, which is listed as the much more believable 35-49 age group.
Not that the TopTen Review site itself is a good place to draw facts from either. As this article points out, the supposed sources for this data are not attached to specific numbers, just lumped in a large list at the end. The data contradicts itself internally. And some of it has mysteriously not changed over the past couple years. (Tell me the number of porn sites has not changed since last year. I mean, come on.) I would look on stats provided by the porn industry itself with similar skepticism, but their critiques of TopTen Review's methodology are completely valid.
There is enough hysteria about sex in this country without journalists pulling questionable statistics from companies making their living from frightening parents. Hyperbole like this distracts from the trickier to define, but very serious challenges, that the forum Clemenson was writing about is trying to address.
Sincerely,
Miriam Axel-Lute
---
(It should be noted that having recently written "caper toss" instead of "caber toss" in an article, and having in the past let at least one mistake of the magnitude of the one above get into one of my articles, I know that I need to be careful about throwing stones. It was deliberate that I directed my letter at the editors and not the writer. I appreciate other people keeping me on my toes and think that it has made me more careful and more skeptical, and aim to return the favor.)