If the point of a news story/video is to say something is not true, would you lead with the data from the not true side?
Here is the way this seems to work: grab your attention with a publicly available statistic that stands out. Oh my, how could there be so many murders in one city?? But, several sentences later, tell the reader/viewer that multiple other cities have a higher murder rate. And include in the last sentence that the murder number in Chicago has been down in recent years. So, wait: Chicago really isn’t the murder capital?
I’m trying to figure out how this adds to the public discourse. Here are a few possibilities:
- It is simply about clicks. Get people’s attention with a statistic and a video, throw in some data. Easy to produce, not much content.
- The goal is to highlight the still-high number of murders in Chicago.
- The goal is to point out that other cities actually experience more murders per capita.
- To give those who teach statistics an example of how data can be twisted and/or used without telling much of a story.
