Wednesday, March 31, 2004

More Bad ReportingBlogging

Matt Leingang has written an article about binge drinking in Cincinnati. That is fine. I have no problem with the article, except no where in the article does he define what was considered binge drinking by the study. I looked in a sister article on the topic and found nothing.

Matt might have looked for something like this note on the Rutgers Journal of Studies on Alcohol's website.

Binge drinking has been defined by some temperance movement activists as 5 drinks in a night for men and 4 for women. That has become a common definition by many in the media who are often too lazy to a little research on the internet. I found the above page in a 10 second search using Google.com. Don't you think Matt might have spent that time? Better yet, do you think Matt did spend that time and his editors stupidly cut that part out? That is possible. The bias and/or stupidity of editors often outweighs that of the reporter.

UPDATE: Yes, I missed it. Yes, I was careless. Yes, I apologize to Matt.

Now, one critique that I honestly think threw me for a loop. Matt switched between using numbers in like "20" and 8.8" to using the word "five." Is that an excuse? Well, not much of one. I do still hold my opinion that the story should have held some critical opinion that disputes the study, which frankly is not worth the paper it is printed on, mostly because it defines "binge" drinking on such a narrow view that it holds no meaning.

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