Sloppy Journalism
Journalism on the mortgage crisis annoys me. "As many as one in four houses may now be underwater." Now, does that mean that one in four houses with a mortgage is underwater, or does that in total, one in four American houses is underwater? What does that even mean, if it is the latter? Believe it or not, not all American houses have a mortgage. A house that is bought and paid for and that has no equity loan against it can't be underwater unless we are talking about an actual flood. Now, you can write about that paid-for house losing part of its market value, but that's not the same thing at all, now is it?
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!
This annoys me because I have to deal with this kind of bad writing at work. Someone will come up to me, mention an astonishing figure that was in an article like this, and say, "Put this in your report." Often, the author just leaves you to draw your own conclusions. Sometimes, it's easy to come up with the data they are quoting; sometimes it's behind a pay wall; and sometimes it's just impossible. But, if you can't be bothered to write something that actually makes sense, why should I quote you and perpetuate non-information?
The guy at CalculatedRisk writes about this phenomenon of bad coverage, but he focuses on reporters falling all over themselves to characterize people who abandon their mortgages through a one-size-fits-all lens. What bugs me more is gems like the one above, where the author obviously didn't stop to think.
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!
This annoys me because I have to deal with this kind of bad writing at work. Someone will come up to me, mention an astonishing figure that was in an article like this, and say, "Put this in your report." Often, the author just leaves you to draw your own conclusions. Sometimes, it's easy to come up with the data they are quoting; sometimes it's behind a pay wall; and sometimes it's just impossible. But, if you can't be bothered to write something that actually makes sense, why should I quote you and perpetuate non-information?
The guy at CalculatedRisk writes about this phenomenon of bad coverage, but he focuses on reporters falling all over themselves to characterize people who abandon their mortgages through a one-size-fits-all lens. What bugs me more is gems like the one above, where the author obviously didn't stop to think.