News & Record's huge error on drunk driving stats

GREENSBORO, NC -- There is a certain type of reporting error that astounds me, I call it an affront to common knowledge, where an assertion goes unchecked even though, on its face, it seems to violate common sense. It is the kind of thing a reporter or editor with general curiosity and some basic knowledge of the world would be compelled to stop and double check.

Today at the News & Record:

"In the United States, a drunken driver causes someone to die every 52 seconds." 

Reporter Danielle Battaglia doesn't cite a source for that tidbit but, on its face, it sounds hard to believe.

Just some quick math challenges the possibility this is true: If there is a drunk driving fatality every 52 seconds, then that's 69 drunk driving deaths every hour; 1,661 a day; 11,630 per week; and 606,000 per year. 

And here is where a lack of general knowledge comes in: That is a huge number of deaths per year for any single cause. It should jump out to a professional reporter and her professional editors as extremely unlikely. 

A quick search of "leading causes of death" would show that such a number would make drunk driving fatalities the leading cause of death in the United States, ahead of the roughly 598,000 per year from heart disease, the 577,000 from cancer and the third place 143,000 from lung disease. (source: Centers for Disease Control)

The fact is, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, "In 2011, 9,878 people were killed in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes." That's far from insignificant, but it is nowhere near the hysterical one every 52 seconds the News & Record reported. It is about one every hour to give you a sense of just how far off the N&R is.  

And a big thumbs down to WGHP MyFox8 who copied and pasted this error to their website from the News & Record without correction.

Summer reruns: Prepare for stories of mobs and riots

GREENSBORO, NC -- School is out, and around here we know what that means. It's time for local TV stations to rev up their scare machines and crank out wildly distorted fear mongering stories of marauding teenagers.

Cub "reporters," recently graduated with degrees in Personal Branding and minors in Hair and Makeup for the Camera, will find some downtown fight or incident of disorder and breathlessly exaggerate it beyond any resemblance to the facts. Dutiful anchors will read what's on the teleprompter, revealing the perfect amount of panic from behind their facades of sage concern while failing to recognize the mendacity of the words they are burping forth. If we're lucky, local politicians may even seize upon the fakery, deny the clear protestations of the police that the media have it wrong, and fan the flames to pursue some public policy for which they would otherwise have no support.

The bar is set pretty low, though, so it will be tough to beat previous years' winners.

WFMY, 2011: A Month of Violent Flash Mobs

In the summer of 2011, WFMY took a single assault and an overturned flowerpot and turned them into an entire month of "police [battling] large flash-mob beatings and vandalism." This whopper, refuted by police, lead the City of Greensboro to stop communicating with WFMY and to demand a meeting with station management to express their displeasure with WFMY "creating storylines." The story fanned all sorts of racist reaction to the detriment of our community.

WFMY never publicly corrected their story or apologized..

WGHP, 2013: 400-Teen Street Brawl

In the summer of 2013, WGHP reported a "massive brawl" downtown involving "400 teens." They even showed surveillance camera video of what they said was the fight. It never happened though, and the video, while showing crowds of people, some running and agitated, did not show a single punch, kick or any people fighting—much less 400 people—but WGHP played the video over and over, instructing viewers to see in the grainy and out of focus footage something that did not exist. This whopper, picked up by the Drudge Report and other media across the country, was also refuted by police, who described, and records document, a series of small and unrelated fights over a seven-hour period on a Saturday night, resulting in eleven arrests. Police accounts did not stop then-mayor and downtown resident Robbie Perkins from repeating the falsehood in an effort to rally support for a downtown youth curfew. The story also inspired  racist reactions to the detriment of our community.

Like WFMY before them, WGHP never publicly corrected their story or apologized (nor did Perkins who subsequently was voted out of office).

How WGHP "corrects" a story

GREENSBORO, NC -- Despite WGHP having had an error of fact brought to their attention last week and correcting it, WGHP reporter, and Elon University journalism graduate, Jasmine Spencer, repeated the error again this week. Here it is as it appeared in the her story on Sunday*:

As WGHP had previously acknowledged, there was not a drop in traffic accidents corresponding to the increased traffic patrols, but actually an increase. Reporting a "21 percent drop in the number of traffic accidents" was wrong, and I emailed Spencer to let her know.

How does a professionally trained journalist make a correction at WGHP? Silently, without acknowledgement and without supplying the actual facts instead: that there was in increase in crashes. Here is how the story appears now*:

I am not a trained journalist, but if I had as my goal supplying my audience with accurate and complete information, I might have added something like this after changing the story:

This story originally reported erroneous information about the number of traffic accidents during the period of increased patrols on Wendover Avenue. According to police, there was a slight increase in accidents compared to the same period during the previous year. We regret the error but are happy to make the correction because we value your trust and strive to keep you accurately informed.

But what do I know?

* Actual screen captures.

WGHP stubbornly immune to the facts

GREENSBORO, NC -- Last week, Bob Buckley of WGHP MyFox8 reported of a multi-month Greensboro Police Department intensified traffic patrol on Wendover Avenue, that:

"the number of crashes dropped dramatically as a result."

That was at odds with what other media had reported, so I emailed Bob and the news director to ask them what their source was. The news director attributed the reporting to a GPD press release that he forwarded to me. However, the press release itself actually contradicted WGHP's reporting of a decline in crashes. It claimed that, as a result of the Wendover traffic initiative:

"There was a slight increase in the number of crashes."

Once this was brought to WGHP's attention, Bob said they'd correct it on the next newscast and in the accompanying website article.

It didn't stick. Once again today, WGHP MyFox8 is reporting on their website:

"During the same initiative on Wendover Avenue, police reported a 21 percent drop in the number of traffic accidents."

That's false and in direct contradiction to the GPD press release WGHP previously cited.

Regurgitating press releases is bad enough—a correlation between crime, accidents and increased traffic patrols does not prove a cause and effect and it's lazy to say so—but completely misreading a press release when doing so and grossly misreprorting what it says is really amateurish.

You may recall that WGHP MyFox8 was the instigator for the wildly exaggerated story of "Nearly 400 people" and "hundreds of students" involved in a "massive brawl" in downtown Greensboro last summer. (Police reported there were a handful of small fights over a seven hour period that Saturday night, never a several-hundred student brawl.) That malpractice by WGHP was one of many among a persistent pattern of WGHP getting their facts wrong, a pattern that continues today.

It seems to me as if WGHP would benefit from a focus on increasing its attention to detail, fact checking and critical analysis. You know: journalism.

WFMY: judge, jury and executioner

GREENSBORO, NC -- Journalism 101: You don't report something as fact just because someone in a position of authority says it is so. That is especially true of criminal allegations. WFMY flunks:

"After an investigation, Winston-Salem police determined Melvin Paul was responsbile [sic] for three other robberies, including an armed robbery prior to the one in High Point on Saturday."  

What do we expect though from a station that sill continues to leave gross errors of historical fact uncorrected?

WGHP MyFox8: who needs the facts when you have us?

GREENSBORO, NC -- From a Greensboro Police Department press release describing the suspects in an armed robbery:

Suspect #1 (Driver) is described as a dark skinned black male, 6’, short hair, in his 20’s, tattoo, last seen wearing blue jeans.

Suspect #2 (Passenger) is described as a dark skinned black male, 6’2”, 210 pounds, short hair with waves on top, last seen wearing a white shirt and khaki pants.

Suspect #3 (Passenger) is described as a dark skinned black male, medium build, 5’10”, last seen wearing a red shirt and blue jeans.

From WGHP's regurgitation of the press release:

Ample suspect descriptions were not available.

I ask again, when we can subscribe by email, feeds and social media to official government announcements, what value do news outlets add when they regurgitate press releases but filter details?

Local media: the less you know, the better

GREENSBORO, NC -- It puzzles me when the local media assume their job includes keeping information from their audience.

Here is how a police press release described a suspect in a downtown stabbing this morning:

"The suspect is described as a black male, approximately 5’9, medium build and wearing a white tank top shirt."

Here is how WGHP MyFox8 reported the suspect's description:

"An ample suspect description was not available."

And the News & Record:

"According to the victim, he was involved in a fight with a man near Washington and Elm streets and the other man assaulted him with a knife, police said."

So tell me, when we can subscribe by email, feeds and social media to official government announcements, what value do news outlets add when they regurgitate press releases but filter details?

WGHP MyFox8, who needs reality when you have us?

The News & Record, the most trusted source for newsish morsels.

Did accuracy elude WGHP again?

GREENSBORO, NC -- On the heels of their shamefully miserable fabrications regarding a "teen brawl" a few weeks ago in downtown Greensboro, WGHP reports this about reports of shots fired outside a building on East Market Street:

"The incident happened at St. John’s Lodge at 1107 E. Market St. where a promoter was hosting a party to “give teens something to do near downtown,” according to Greensboro City Council-member Zack Matheny."

The News & Record, who managed to adhere mostly to the facts in reporting the previous events, reports this about last night:

"The building at 1107 E. Market St. was rented out for a birthday party for a 16-year-old, said David Stephens, building superintendent for St. John's Lodge."

Was it a party to celebrate an individual's birthday or a party to give teens something to do near downtown? Given WGHP's previous fabrications and the refusal of any City Council person, including Matheny, to refute WGHP's  previous incorrect reporting, the credibility advantage goes to the News & Record.

WGHP's contemptible malice towards Greensboro's black kids

GREENSBORO, NC -- By now, the extent of WGHP's fabrications and distortions about hundreds of kids fighting in downtown Greensboro is well know. Refuted by the police and video records, WGHP's story has been discredited. The world-wide damage caused by their dishonesty is apparent.


Yet, even today, WGHP continues to promote their false version of events. It's bad enough they've made no corrections, but by continuing to push their original false story, it is becoming inescapable that the people responsible—reporters Lindsey Eaton and Brandon Jones, anchors Brad Jones and Cindy Farmer, news director Karen Koutsky and the anonymous staff who are keeping the lies alive—harbor some ill intent towards the young black kids of Greensboro besmeared by their fictions.

I missed something important

GREENSBORO, NC -- Earlier this week, I wrote a post faulting some unsubstantiated and incorrect information in a report News & Record reporter Joe Gamm wrote about the fights that occurred downtown last weekend.

I missed something important though. In a sea of hyperbole and what appears more and more to be fabricated stories of hundreds of teens brawling downtown—as reported by WGHP and WFMY (and unchallenged by Mayor Robbie Perkins)—Gamm got the central fact of the size and scope of the fights correct. Gamm did not hyperventilate the story beyond or in contradiction to available evidence and into the type of falsehoods reported by WGHP and WFMY of hundreds of teens fighting in a massive brawl. Gamm correctly reported, "a series of small fights" for which 11 people were arrested.

In my focus on the mile-wide holes in the local media reports of the events (and Gamm's quick pass at previous downtown violence), I missed Gamm's simple but exceptional oasis of accuracy amid the sea of panicked untruths. He got the core facts right. As remarkable as it might seem, he deserves credit for that.

[This post originally had "Gamm did hyperventilate..." That is not what I mean to write. It has been corrected: "Gamm did not hyperventilate..."]

The damage done, thank you local media and Mr. Mayor

GREENSBORO, NC -- What has the local media's hyperbolic and inaccurate reporting of "hundred of kids brawling in downtown Greensboro" and the Mayor's refusal to correct the hyperbole wraught for Greensboro?

Here is a sampling from around the world:

Drudge report:  

400 teens in street brawl in Greensboro.

Altaris, Round Rock, TX:

Well that is great news to hear, since I'll be visiting my cousins there in 3 weeks. :(
Do I need to come ready to ---> ? 

JackMac, TX:

Google...Jerry Bledsoe and Greensboro Police controversy. Crooked department ...not trusted by other agencies. Officers involved in drugs and prostitution and more. Google it and read for yourself. Don't trust them to protect you. Prepare to defend yourself if you live there, is the word.

WTAM Radio, Cleveland, OH:

WATCH: Nearly 400 Teens Brawl In Greensboro; Time For Teen Curfew?

Anonymous, United Kingdom:

i wish i was in the usa airfocre fully loaded , i wouldnt have a problem fucking air striking everyone of the fucking animals

stupid fucking baboons

ABC News Politics Message Forum:

Judging by the video.....planet of the apes. 

Breitbart:

400 Teens Brawl in North Carolina

Daily Pundit:

One word missing:  400 Black teens in street brawl….

WGHP's Cindy Farmer & Brad Jones just lied to their viewers

GREENSBORO, NC -- This has to stop. WGHP's Cindy Farmer just reported on air that "hundreds of students got into several fights" in downtown Greensboro on Saturday. Her co-anchor, Brad Jones called it a "massive brawl."

Absolutely zero evidence has been provided to substantiate the claim that hundreds of students were involved in fighting and WGHP's insistence on fact-free hyperbole in describing what happened is downright irresponsible. It is bringing undeserved national attention to Greensboro and it has now made liars of Jones and Farmer.

WGHP needs to provide substance to back up their claims or correct themselves. If hundreds of people were fighting, prove it. If not, stop saying so.

Mayor: “The root problem is, why are these large groups of young people congregating downtown?”

GREENSBORO, NC -- From the News & Record:

“'The root problem is, why are these large groups of young people congregating downtown?’ [Mayor Robbie] Perkins said."

From WGHP MyFox8:

"Greensboro Police are still trying to figure out why the teens were downtown."

Wasn't it because of the City-sponsored movie night downtown that night for youths 13 - 18?

"The Summer Night Lights (SNL) program for youth, ages 13-18, continues this week with Movie Night on Saturday, June 29 from 7-11 pm at Festival Park, 200 N. Davie St., in Downtown Greensboro. Admission is free of charge!"

Don't worry though:

"Perkins said the city has its best talent working on a resolution to the downtown problem."

Yes, the best talent—who will no doubt regrettably recommend a curfew.

(Hat tip Billy Jones.)

Greensboro on Drudge report

GREENSBORO, NC -- Thanks to WGHP, Greensboro is on the front page of the Drudge Report:

400 teens in street brawl in Greensboro...

The original on MyFox8.com:

Only one problem: Not really.

(Hat tip to commenter Don Moore)

Local media cranks up the Fourth of July hysteria machine

GREENSBORO, NC -- Here we go! It's Fourth of July time and we know what that means in Greensboro—hysterical fact free reporting of hundreds of kids fighting downtown.

First up, MyFox8 WGHP. Without attribution or citation, Lindsey Eaton reports of last Saturday night:

"Nearly 400 people were involved in the several fights that happened along Elm Street."

Wow! That's a lot of people to be fighting in downtown Greensboro. Hard to believe, actually, which might explain the lack of attribution. Come on, Lindesy, were 400 people really fighting in downtown Greensboro on Saturday night? Are you sure you don't have Greensboro confused with, oh, I don't know, Cairo, maybe?

Eaton continues:

"Greensboro police arrested 11 people ranging in age from 16 to 20-years-old."

Again, there is no source or attribution, but the claim is at odds with the public record which shows that, from 4:00 p.m Saturday to 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning, there were five arrests for fighting in what appear to be three different fights. Three fights over 12 hours; five arrests. Not 400 people and 11 arrests.

Eaton introduces her unsubstantiated story by telling us that the "massive fight" has "some city leaders taking a hard look at bringing back the teen curfew."

What city leaders? Eaton doesn't say. I emailed the news department at WGHP this morning to ask just who are these city leader for whom the "massive fight" has them reconsidering a downtown curfew. They have not yet replied, although a "Notice of emergency meeting" of the Greensboro City Council called by Mayor Robbie Perkins to reconsider reinstatement of a teen curfew reached my inbox a little while ago.

Next up, Joe Gamm of the News & Record. Gamm offers this single paragraph so full of unsourced and undocumented claims it's worthy of the National Enquirer.

"The incident, for some [who?], brings to mind something that happened in Center City Park several hours after the downtown Fun Fourth Festival ended last year. Reports [where?] said 22 officers on duty after the event had to use tear gas to control a defiant crowd. Witnesses [who?] said some in the crowd taunted police and provoked dozens of fights."

Dozens of fights?

Hmm.

Reports of the kind one can actually read for themselves (whoohoo a hyperlink!) told of one fight resulting in two arrests, one for disturbing the peace, the other for disorderly conduct. This contradicts Gamm but corresponds to the public record.

Gamm also "reports" of last year's use of tear gas that:

"Police were trying to enforce a curfew, which requires visitors to leave the park by 11 p.m."

That is also at odd with reports, the kind we can actually read (whoohoo another hyperlink!) that tear gas was used to disperse a crowd in the Jimmy Johns restaurant, three blocks from the park.

I think Gamm is being played by a manipulative or sloppy source. While he writes that police deployed tear gas to enforce an 11:00 p.m. closing time for the park his own paper reported that tear gas was deployed at 10:45 p.m..

Buckle up Greensboro, a media fueled panic is underway. Have at it Mr. Gamm and Ms. Eaton.

[How about a post script kudos to WFMY for, atypically, not jumping on the hysteria bandwagon?]

Silence of the lambs

GREENSBORO, NC -- Have any of the local media (News & Record, WFMY and WGHP) who breathlessly and mistakenly reported the released-in-2007 police chief/city manager transcript as newly-released this week made any corrections? Have any of them walked back their implications that this will either: a) add to the mystery or b) end the mystery?

Of course, what their readers and viewers are really owed is a correction of the same magnitude and the same reach as the original error, but have any even uttered a whisper of a correction?

Grits?
Clinkingbeard?
Koutsky?
Lehmert?
Flash mob?
Jones?
Mickens?
Rivera?

Anybody going to show us how the pros do it? Baaaa -aaaaa -- aaaaa.

[update: 11:42, corrected Jones' name.]

Local reporters' reading assignment

Dear local media people,

I have a request.

If you are going to report on the events and controversies surrounding the Greensboro Police Department under the command of former Chief David Wray, will you please read Jerry Bledsoe's series Cops in Black and White?

Please?

Yes, I know it's long and I know it was published by a competitor, but it is the ultimate guide to the issue and familiariity with it would keep you from such inaccurate things as:

Amanda Lehmert of the News & Record reporting that a transcript of the conversation where former City Manager Mitch Johnson locks the Cheif out of his office as newly released when it has been available for almost six years.

Brandon Jacobs of Fox8 News following Amanda's lead and describing the transcript as "newly-released."

Mark "Flash Mob" Geary (2:15 mark), describing the years-old transcript as a "new revelation" and saying it has Mitchel Johnson referring to the "Secret Police Unit" when locking Wray out of his office (heck, Geary could have just read the transcript carefully to see that wasn't so). Geary also insinuates that the RMA report has not been made public and otherwise generally mangles the facts.

Tanya Rivera describing (0:02 mark) "Greensboro's black book scandal" as "still a mystery." (To her, perhaps.)

Here are the first 25 parts of the Bledsoe series, you'll have to Google the rest, but please do.

Thanks,

Roch

Greensboro media stricken with mass amnesia, blunderfest ensues

[Editor's note: The word "report" is used in this post. It is not always intended to mean researching, investigating and conveying facts or anything like the traditional meaning of the word "report." In some instances, it is used to describe a charade, the way one would describe children in pirate costumes as "sword fighting" at Halloween. They think that's what they are doing, it sort of looks like that's what they are doing, but that's not what they are doing. You know, "reporting."]

GREENSBORO, NC -- I can't stop laughing.

Apparently kicked off by a report in the News & Record, Greensboro's media jumped all over the newly-released transcripts of a recording of former city manager Mitchel Johnson firing former police chief David Wray in 2006.

One minor detail though: The transcripts were released six years ago.

Under the original headline "Transcript in Greensboro police scandal now public," (since changed), the News & Record reported (emphasis added):

"It was a meeting that had ripple effects across city government.

"It led to a police chief resigning, a city manager being fired and several new politicians being elected into office.

"And now, the details of that closed-door meeting are open for public review."

WGHP rushed in to report (emphasis added):

"Seventeen pages of newly-released transcripts read like a never-ending saga"

Cut to City Council representative Zack Matheny:

"It's finally, at this point, seven years later, coming out to what actually happened."

Cut to City Council representative Marikay Abuzuaiter:

"Once I review the information am I going to change any personal feelings I may have had in the past? That's going to be huge for me, that's going to be a huge informational overload that I am going to have to filter through."

Not to be left out, WFMY jumped on the goofwagon and reported:

"A transcript of that 'private' conversation is now public."

WFMY's accompanying video has been removed without comment is back online. In it, a reporter describes the transcripts as "new revelations."

Then, just when everyone was having so much fun, along comes Ben Holder to spoil the blunderfest by reminding us that this "new" information was released six years ago. He posts video of the City Council approving release of the information on September 17, 2007 and of WXII reporting on it two days later:



WFMY report of the release in 2007 too:

Council Releases Audio Conversation Between Johnson and Wray
WFMY News 2
Sep 19, 2007

Most sad though is that the progenitor of this week's mass amnesia, the News & Record, had also covered the original release of this information in 2007 but this somehow eluded them this week even though the original reporter still works at the News & Record:

Wray Lockout Transcript Released
News & Record, by Margaret Moffett Banks
September 19, 2007

.

In fairness to Billy Yow

The voters will decide the significance of Guilford County Commissioner and sixth district congressional candidate Billy Yow's t-shirt episode, but, as is my practice here, I find it necessary to comment on yet another local media mistake, this one unfair to Yow.

In yesterday's story about BillyYow.com displaying the repugnant Yow inspired t-shirt, WGHP rolled video of Yow posing with the t-shirt. He is wearing a blue shirt while holding up the t-shirt, seemingly identical to the blue shirt he is wearing when shown speaking on camera. The impression created was that the video of Yow holding up the t-shirt is from the present.

It is not.

Prodded by a reader's comment, I checked with WGHP and they acknowledged that the video of Yow holding up the t-shirt was file footage from the spring of 2004. It was not identified as such in the report and that left this blogger with the impression that Yow was, even to this day, still proudly holding up that insipid t-shirt.

He was not.

I'm a pretty savvy and skeptical consumer of media. If this got past me, it probably created the same false impression with other viewers. The facts of the matter—the who, what and when—can speak for themselves; they don't need to be distorted and the file footage should have been identified as from the past. Not doing so created a false impression that, even if unintentional, was unfair to Yow.

(Thanks to Tony Wilkins who brought the discrepancy to my attention.)

WFMY, WGHP erroneous reports follow bad GPD press release

WGHP and WFMY got their facts wrong on stories about illegal window tinting. They repeated an error that was in a Greensboro Police Department press release. (The error was brought to the attention of the GPD by this blogger, but went uncorrected—remains uncorrected.) The press release reads, in part:

"State traffic law makes window tinting illegal when applied to front and/or side windows when the total light transmittance is blocked by 35% or less."

That's incorrect. State law says:

"The total light transmission of the tinted window shall be at least thirty‑five percent (35%)."

So the GPD press release should have read that window tinting is illegal when light transmittance is 35% or less, not when "blocked by 35% or less" (which doesn't even make sense if you think about it because that would make windows where light is blocked by 0% illegal because 0 is less than 35).

Thus WFMY erroneously reported (see the video for additional fun—even though Tanya Rivera speaks the error to a police officer who corrects her, the mistake still makes it into the written story.):

"In North Carolina, it's illegal to have your front and side windows block 35% or more light."

WGHP got it wrong too. They reported (on their website):

"Window tenting becomes illegal in North Carolina when (sic) front or side-windows when more than 35 percent of outside light is being blocked."

The News & Record and News 14 Carolina got it right, both reporting with identical sentences:

"State law makes window tinting illegal when the total light transmitted through the front or side windows is 35 percent or less."