Misleading story about Ukraine?

[tectonic_drift]

A few weeks ago, I heard a story on NPR that surprised me because parts of it were very misleading. I wrote a letter expressing my concern, but also thought I’d share the concern here to see what others think.

I think Gregory Feifer’s April 5th story on protests in the Ukraine grossly misrepresented the situation in Ukraine. In the story

Comments

as the economy grows

[henare]

lower %ages map to larger amounts of growth. double-digit economic growth is big news, but it's not sustainable by most economies forever.

the sample size is also kinda small, but (by these numbers) the ukraine economy has grown by more than 33% since 2003. is 33% not "significant growth?"

Re: as the economy grows

[tectonic_drift]

I suppose, you could say that. What stands out to my eye is that in 2004 the growth rate was 12% and in 2005 it was 2.5%. This is almost about a 79% drop. Most economists think of the growth of GDP as a measure of the health of an economy. So a drop like that coinciding with the Orange Revolution is to me remarkable, remarkably bad. My real interest here is not to argue about numbers, but to understand Feifer’s rationale when he said the economy has “grown significantly”. I’d like to know what numbers he was looking at.

[reallyamermaid]

Can't speak to those facts, but I do wonder as to who got your letter. Did you write to your local or to NPR? If it was addressed to your local, no response is shameful. I don't know how long it takes things to filter through nationally and I assume they get many, many letters. But I know that if you write to my local, I'm the one who gets the letters. I get many that should have been sent to the national folks. And I respond anyway. If your local didn't respond to you, that's just terrible Audience Service work and you should probably speak with the Director of Development. You deserve an answer even if it's not what you want to hear. I figure anyone who posts here is a member of their local. If not, what would make you feel you had a right to bitch? So if you're giving them your money, you deserve more. Let them know that you understand that. Bad customer/listener service just pisses me off.

[tectonic_drift]

I wrote to NPR, and don’t really expect a response because I imagine they get thousands of letters. I think of it as writing to the editor of my local newspaper. There is usually just a small chance of them reading/printing the letter, and substantive responses are even rarer.