| Description |
xv, 249 pages ; 24 cm |
|
regular print |
| Contents |
Introduction: Making News and Making Sense: The News That's "Fit to Print" -- Pt. I. The Ambiguity of News -- Ch. 1. The News that isn't there: Stories That Are - and Aren't - Covered -- Ch. 2. Much Ado About Little: Making News Mountains out of Research Molehills -- Pt. II. The Ambiguity of Measurement -- Ch. 3. Bait and Switch: Understanding "Tomato" Statistics -- Ch. 4. The Perils of Proxies: Is There a There There? -- Ch. 5. Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? A Look at Statistics from Both Sides Now -- Ch. 6. Polls Apart: The Gertrude Stein Approach to Making Sense of Contradictory Surveys -- Ch. 7. The Reality and Rhetoric of Risk: Telling It Like It Is - and Isn't -- Ch. 8. Distinguishing "Reports" from Reality: Confusing the Map with the Territory -- Pt. III. The Ambiguity of Explanation -- Ch. 9. Blaming the Messenger, Ignoring the Message: Do Motives Matter? -- Ch. 10. Tunnel Vision and Blind Spots: The Danger of Hedgehog Interpretations |
|
Conclusion: Hard to Tell: Journalism, Science, and Public Policy - An Inherent Conflict? |
| Summary |
"Airplane crashes, the AIDS epidemic, presidential election polls and voting results, global warming, the latest cancer scare - all these news stories require scientific savvy, first to report, and then - for news consumers - to understand. It Aint Necessarily So cuts through the miasma surrounding media reporting of scientific studies, surveys, and statistics. Whether the problem is bad science, media politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge, this book gives news consumers the tools to penetrate the hype and dig out the facts."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 233-239) and index |
| Subject |
Journalism -- Objectivity.
|
|
Science journalism.
|
| Author |
Lichter, S. Robert.
|
|
Schwartz, Joel (Joel B.), 1950-
|
| LC no. |
00066464 |
| ISBN |
0742510956 (alk. paper) |
|
