2012 election

Debate Alarm: The Fake Statistic Strikes Again

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Outrageous.

That damn statistic again. Well, there goes THAT head!

Candy Crowley, disgracefully, chose another question at a Presidential debate—the last one was 12 years ago—based on the completely false and misleading statistic, made up by activists, that women earn “72%” of what men do in the workplace, suggesting that there is widespread gender discrimination in wages. It’s not true; it hasn’t been true for decades. It’s a myth, and one that misleads the public by being given this kind of publicity and credibility. ( The question Crowley allowed even lowered the fake percentage an extra, and fake, 5% from the “77%” Bernard Shaw negligently used in a question to Joe Lieberman. in 2000.) I’m glad Romney didn’t dignify it with a direct answer—he was placed in the position of either telling the questioner, “That stat is imaginary,” or furthur imbedding it by treating it as reality.

I’m generally a fan of Candy’s, but this was irresponsible, and I’m disappointed in her. Public policy debate shouldn’t be framed by simple-minded, misleading factoids, and it is the duty of journalists to insist on facts.

The 77% Lie: Just Because a False Statistic Is Useful and Traditional Doesn’t Make It Less Unethical To Keep Using It.

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Sure, lie to us, Mr. President. As long as its for a good cause.

In 2000, CNN anchor Bernard Shaw used the statistic that “women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar men receive for the same work” in a question to Joe Lieberman during the Vice Presidential candidates debate, prompting me to turn or the TV and write a letter to CNN. The statistic had long been debunked as misleading and inaccurate for years by every objective observer who examined it. The unspoken assumption that figure is meant to convey is that this supposed gap reflects sexism in the workplace. It dates from the early days of NOW and the feminist push for the Equal Rights Amendment, an activist-concocted lie, like many of the global warming “facts” mouthed by Al Gore, designed to simplify a complex phenomenon into something unequivocally persuasive. For Shaw, a journalist, to repeat a false and misleading statistic as fact in a nationally televised debate was inexcusable, and irresponsible journalism.

Did I mention that this was in 2000?

The 77% stat is one of my two pet fake statistics (the other being the statement that 50% of all U.S. marriages end in divorce, used by culture warriors on both the left and right), and I have vowed not to let either pass without a red flag until I either drop dead or people stop lying. So I don’t care to hear, thank you, about how I’m picking on the President Obama when Mitt Romney has been using some misleading facts too. I know he has. But when a President of the United States whose supporters laud as a genius and scholar, and who pledged not to mislead the American people promotes his campaign with a widely publicized statistic that he has to know misinforms the public, I believe that’s alarming, insulting, and infuriating.  The fact that Democrats and feminists have been using the same lie for over three decades doesn’t make it less offensive, but more. Continue reading →