WFMY regurgitates another Greensboro Police press release error; 2nd in four days

Twice in four days now, the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) has issued press releases containing errors and both have resulted in local media repeating the errors uncorrected.

Yesterday, the GDP issued a press release on recent crime statistics in which they erroneously said that murders in 2011 were:

"32 percent above the three year average"

That's incorrect. The three year average was incorrectly calculated and homicides were actually up 47 percent over the prior three year average according to the GPD's own data (see table below).

Nonetheless, although the table that afforded the opportunity to double-check the GPD's math accompanied the press release, WFMY apparently made no effort to check the official pronouncement and dutifully regurgitated the error, reporting:

"Homicides rose by 32% compared to a three year average."

Four days ago, a GPD press release erroneously stated the amount of light that state law requires be transmitted through window tinting. WFMY and WGHP repeated the error from the press release. The GPD press release, the WFMY and WGHP stories all remain uncorrected.

To their credit, whether intentional or happenstance, other local media avoided repeating the crime statistic error. Yet these events underscore two troubling circumstances;

1. In both cases, this blogger brought the errors to the attention of the GPD. Neither was acknowledged or corrected. It is troubling that the GPD makes these kinds of math errors to begin with, it is even more concerning when they fail to correct them.
2. The media has a duty to fact check the pronouncements people make, doubly so those made by governmental entities. WFMY has a horrendous history of fabrications, errors and plagiarism—the distinction of the worst, far and away, among local media—with which they seem completely unconcerned or unwilling to address. 

UPDATE: WFMY is now linking from their home page to a shorter version of the story, this one also with an error, it erroneously reports there were 15 homicides in 2010. There were 16.

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Here is the table that accompanied the press release. The average of homicides for the three years prior to 2011 was 17, thus the percentage increase is actually 47 percent, not 32 percent.