by hilzoy
Two years ago, a reporter on Lou Dobbs’ show said this:
“ROMANS: It’s interesting, because the woman in our piece told us that there were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years. Leprosy in this country.
DOBBS: Incredible. Christine Romans, thank you. “
Ten days ago, this figure was challenged by Leslie Stahl on Sixty Minutes:
“60 Minutes checked that and found a report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying that 7,000 is the number of leprosy cases over the last 30 years, not the past three. The report also says that nobody knows how many of those cases involve illegal immigrants.
“We went to try and check that number, 7,000. We can’t…,” Stahl says.
“Well, I can tell you this. If we reported it, it’s a fact,” Dobbs replies.
“You can’t tell me that. You did report it,” Stahl says.
“I just did,” Dobbs says.
“How can you guarantee that to me?” Stahl asks.
Says Dobbs, “Because I’m the managing editor. And that’s the way we do business. We don’t make up numbers, Lesley.””
As you can see, Lou Dobbs defended the number. He did so again the next day on his own show:
“And there was a question about some of your comments, Christine. Following one of your reports, I told Leslie Stahl, we don’t make up numbers, and I will tell everybody here again tonight, I stand 100 percent behind what you said.
ROMANS: That’s right, Lou. We don’t make up numbers here. This is what we reported.”
No one is accusing Lou Dobbs and his reporters of “making up numbers”. People are accusing them of reporting things that are false, and that can be seen to be false given any minimal attempt to discover the facts. Below the fold, I’ll try to explain what happened.
The reason I bother is that this is a case that illustrates, in miniature, the reason I think there’s a serious problem with the media. This isn’t Fox, or Rush Limbaugh, or some other group from whom no one expects better. This is CNN. And the only way I can see that they could have reported their story as they did in the first place was simply not to have bothered to check the facts. Having been called on this, they did not retract or clarify their original story, or provide what Anderson Cooper calls “the Raw Data.” Lou Dobbs and his reporter just insist that they are right, and Dobbs seems to think that an appeal to his own authority is all that’s needed.
Most people don’t have the time to track down leprosy figures. They assume that the basic factual claims they hear on the news are, broadly speaking, accurate. And they should be able to assume this: after all, that’s why we have news organizations. In this particular case, the actual figures are easy to find. The person Lou Dobbs euphemistically refers to as a “reporter” just didn’t bother.
As best I can tell, here’s what happened. In the original CNN piece, the “reporter”, Christine Romans, says that “the woman in our piece told us that there were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years. There have been 7,000 in the past three years.” The “woman in our piece” is identified as “Dr. Madeline Cosman, Medical Lawyer”. In fact, for most of her life Dr. Cosman (whose doctorate is in English and Comparative Literature) was a medievalist, whom the NYT describes as follows (h/t Media Matters):
“The author of nearly a dozen books, Ms. Cosman was best known to popular audiences for “Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony” (George Braziller, 1976). An illustrated study of culinary practice in the Middle Ages, it also included recipes for dishes like roseye (fried fish in a rose-petal sauce), mulled wine and peppermint rice. (…)
Most recently, Ms. Cosman’s interest in health care policy led her to study the effects of illegal immigration on the United States health-care system. Her article “Illegal Aliens and American Medicine,” published last year in The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, has been widely reproduced on anti-immigration and other conservative Web sites.
Ms. Cosman’s husband, Bard, a plastic surgeon whom she married in 1958, died in 1983. Survivors include a daughter, Marin, of Scarsdale, N.Y.; a son, Bard, of La Jolla, Calif.; and four grandchildren. Information on other survivors could not be confirmed.
Ms. Cosman also leaves behind a vast library of illuminated manuscripts and a large collection of handguns.”
The figures CNN quoted come from the article (pdf) mentioned in the NYT’s obituary. There she writes:
“Leprosy, a scourge in Biblical days and in medieval Europe, so horribly destroys flesh and faces it was called the “disease of the soul.” Lepers quarantined in leprosaria sounded noisemakers when they ventured out to warn people to stay far away. Leprosy, Hansen’s disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico.”
A couple of things are striking about this paragraph. One is that it’s written in a needlessly alarming way. Leprosy was indeed terrifying in Biblical days and medieval Europe; however, today it is treatable. (Similarly, I think it would be misleading, in a medical piece on childbirth today, to note that throughout history childbirth was lethal to many women, without noting that we have virtually eliminated many of the main causes of maternal mortality, like childbed fever.)
Much more importantly, though, this crucial sentence — “Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy.” — is ambiguous. It could be talking about the total number of known cases in the country at a given time, or it could be talking about the number of new cases reported each year. The fact that Cosman talks about the number of cases in ‘the last three years’ makes the second reading more plausible — if one were talking about the total number of known cases, it would be odd to say ‘in the past three years’, as opposed to ‘now’.
The total number of cases might rise for any number of reasons. Most obviously: even if everything else, and specifically the number of new cases per year in the US, remained constant, you’d expect the total number of known cases to rise. Why? For one thing, the US population has grown by around 2/3 in the last forty years, and if the percentage of the population with leprosy had remained constant, you’d expect it to have grown as well. For another, people are living longer, and so even if the number of new cases per year had remained the same — which you wouldn’t expect, since the population has increased — the total number of lepers would have risen, so long as leprosy was not being detected later in life.
Moreover, while leprosy does not kill people directly, there is evidence that it is associated with increased mortality because of indirect effects — e.g., the stigma attached to it, the resulting social isolation and difficulty finding employment, etc. Treatments for leprosy that allow people with the disease to avoid its grotesque, disabling effects first appeared in the 1940s; however, they only became really effective and really widespread in the US in the 80s — that is, during the last 40 years. One would therefore expect that the lifespans of people with leprosy would have increased more than the average lifespan in the US during that time period; as noted, this would make the number of people living with leprosy rise as well.
In a nutshell, there is no earthly reason to cite the total number of known cases of leprosy in order to make the point that Cosman is making, unless one also cites evidence that the number of known cases is not rising because of decreased mortality or increases in the size of the US population.
***
If you check the sources Cosman cites as references for this claim, both make it fairly clear that they are referring to the total number of known cases. One is from the NYT; it says:
“While there were some 900 recorded cases in the United States 40 years ago, today more than 7,000 people have leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, as it is now called.”
The second is from the Village Voice:
“While there were some 900 cases of leprosy in the U.S. 35 years ago, today 10,000 are on record, 500 of them in the tristate area.”
Personally, I suspect that the reason why Cosman says “in the past three years” is pretty mundane: she gets the 7,000 number from the NYT article, which was published in 2003; her own article is from 2005; thus, she says “the last three years” rather than “now”. But that is surely one of the things that made it possible to misread her claim as referring to the total number of new cases.
Anyways: I have no idea what Cosman actually said to CNN’s ‘reporter’. Perhaps she was just as ambiguous in person as she is in print. (It’s worth noting that she seems to be a bit nutty.) But here’s the thing:
If you are a reporter, it’s your job to verify your facts. This is true under any circumstances, but it’s especially true when you report for a major network like CNN, and it’s doubly especially true when you’re making an inflammatory claim, like the claim that illegal aliens have sent our leprosy caseload through the roof.
Had CNN’s supposed ‘reporter’ bothered to check the actual figures, she would have found that the number of new cases per year has never been anywhere near 7,000, but that the total number of people living with leprosy in the US is. She would also have discovered that that total is unlikely to have much to do with illegal immigrants.
Here is a summary of Hansen’s disease, aka leprosy, in the US. Money quotes: “Compiled statistics reveal that Hansen’s disease (leprosy) is rare in the U.S. There are currently approximately 6,500 cases; about 3,300 require active medical management” and “166 new cases were reported in the U.S. in 2005 (the most recent year for which data are available.)”
Here is a list of new cases per year, and total cases discovered (not all of whom may be alive). Note that the real jump in leprosy cases came in 1975, and that the numbers started to come down again in the late 80s. And here is the government’s statistics page for leprosy, which includes not only links to Excel spreadsheets and the like, but a handy graph:
The graph helpfully notes the years of heavy immigration from Indochina, which correspond with the big increase in new cases of leprosy. I don’t know what percentage of Indochinese immigrants in that period were illegal, but I would have thought that most immigrants coming from, say, Vietnam during the 70s and 80s would have been legal immigrants moving to this country in the aftermath of the North Vietnamese victory, and that a lot of them would have been legal. Which is a long way of saying: it has nothing whatsoever to do with what Lou Dobbs was talking about.
These figures are not hard to find. One of the delights of living right now is the fact that so much information is so easy to obtain. Had CNN’s alleged ‘reporter’ bothered to check the facts, it would have been easy for her to find them, and she would (I hope) have reported her story differently.
Moreover, had Lou Dobbs bothered to check the facts before defending his claim on 60 Minutes and on his own show, it’s hard to see how he could have said what he did. What his reporter said was wrong. He could have just said so, or he could have explained that she mistook a claim about total known cases for a claim about new cases per year.
But he didn’t. He just reaffirmed his original story. Most people will not bother to track down the facts. They will just conclude that illegal immigrants are bringing leprosy into this country. And while there are undoubtedly reasons to worry about illegal immigration, leprosy really isn’t one of them.
***
* (Apologies to Brad DeLong for stealing his phrase. It just seemed so apt.)
Given that you are willing to channel DeLong, when is every post going to end with “Impeach George Bush! Impeach Dick Cheney! Do it now!” or the equivalent?
Lou: [narrating] The story of the Dobbs family began in the Old Country. I forget which one exactly. My dad would drone on and on about America. He thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, sliced bread having been invented the previous winter.
Lou’s dad: [holds up an America pamphlet] See that, son? That’s where we’re going to live. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.
Lou: Later that day, we set sail for America.
Lou’s dad: [points at the Statue of Liberty] See that, son? That’s our new home.
Young Lou: [playing on Statue’s arm] Yay! I love America!
Lou’s mom: [pokes head out of Statue’s nose] Abe! Supper’s on! [back to present day]
Lou: We had to move out once we filled the entire head with garbage. The end.
Journalism has continued to go down the toilet. There’s been a creeping laziness (If you get into “he said, she said” articles in science reporting, you simply aren’t doing your job).
And the lack of historical perspective that shoots through this is also sad, but also not surprising…
^^^^^^^^^
You misspelled “a racist loon”.
HTH
HAND
This isn’t Fox, or Rush Limbaugh, or some other group from whom no one expects better. This is CNN.
This piece, with which I agree, would be much more compelling without the foregoing statement — which is unnecessary and incorrect insofar as it suggests that Fox’s news arm (as opposed to its opinion arm) makes a more errors that CNN’s news arm or the NY Times. If you’re comparing Fox opinion to CNN opinion, I also don’t see it: there’s no evidence that Nancy Grace or Lou Dobbs or Glenn Beck are better with the facts than O’Reilly, Hannity & Combs, or Greta. (Indeed, I’d take Greta over all of them in terms of playing it straight: Grace and Dobbs are terrible; Beck, while not terrible, is an idiot.)
Excellent. Although I’m somehow beginning to feel I may become too well informed, now that i have a handle on leprosy in America. Still how proud you must be able to have a Leprosy Edition of anything.
I do agree with Von, the “This is CNN” did clang a little, even though I heard it in James Earl Jones’ voice.
Also, I’m not sure if I would say Beck is a terrible idiot or a fine idiot, but I’ve narrowed it to those two.
This piece, with which I agree, would be much more compelling without the foregoing statement — which is unnecessary and incorrect insofar as it suggests that Fox’s news arm (as opposed to its opinion arm) makes a more errors that CNN’s news arm or the NY Times.
Which it does.
Setting aside entirely the editorial slant of garbage like Hannity or O’Reilly, Fox’s “news” arm has a fairly long track record of pushing false or misleading stories, using false or misleading headlines to deceive people who might just be glancing at the TV, and acting as a conduit for right-wing lies. Where reporting on CNN and MSNBC is, like most of the media, frequently guilty of being lazy, Fox’s slant on the news is actively malicious and dishonest by design.
There’s nothing incorrect about what Hilzoy wrote. Whether or not it’s unnecessary is, I suppose, a matter of taste.
is unnecessary and incorrect insofar as it suggests that Fox’s news arm (as opposed to its opinion arm) makes a more errors that CNN’s news arm or the NY Times.
here’s some data for you to chew on.
They will just conclude that illegal immigrants are bringing leprosy into this country.
I just don’t see the danger here. No one perceives Lou Dobbs as a neutral journalist; rather, friends and foes alike see him as a Limbaugh or O’Reilly type, in this case with a twist of Perot.
No sane person will believe, on the say-so of Lou Dobbs alone, that there is about to be a leprosy epidemic caused by illegal aliens. Crazy old people who watch Lou Dobbs will no doubt believe him, but they were crazy before Dobbs entered the picture. They don’t have crazy ideas because Lou Dobbs fills their heads with them; rather, their craziness is why Lou Dobbs is there in the first place.
Didn’t someone do a survey once (I cannot remember who did it or how serious it was, though) that demonstrated that regular watchers of The Daily Show were better informed than regular watchers of Fox News?
*swift google* Pew Research Center: of Americans who watch Fox News Channel, only 35% of them are able to answer at least 15 of 23 questions about current events correctly, whereas 41% of CNN watchers could do so, and 54% of watchers of The Daily Show/The Colbert Report.
The data doesn’t support a casual link, Cleek.
“Excellent. Although I’m somehow beginning to feel I may become too well informed, now that i have a handle on leprosy in America.”
Imagine my joy at each summer’s report of more and more local cases of the plague. Boulder closed a local park last week due to rampant plague.
Y’know, just the Black Death: nothing to worry about.
The data doesn’t support a casual link
it does suggest that Fox viewers are less-informed than people who watch/listen to other media outlets. maybe Fox attracts dummies and fails to educate them. maybe Fox, in doing its duty as a GOP propaganda organ, simply lies to its viewers. maybe both. either way, Fox viewers end up knowing fewer basic facts – that kinda makes a person wonder if Fox itself is better with facts than other outlets.
cleek, I think very little of Fox, but the fact that O’Reilly’s and Limbaugh’s audiences ranked just below “The News Hour” and actually flanked NPR listeners in the rankings viewers suggests to me that the survey results do not correlate to the accuracy of the sources.
“…and actually flanked NPR listeners in the rankings viewers….”
It may be just me who doesn’t understand what this means.
Gary Farber: It may be just me who doesn’t understand what this means.
O’Reilly Factor viewers and Limbaugh radio listeners are right next to NPR listeners in the Pew survey rankings.
the fact that O’Reilly’s and Limbaugh’s audiences ranked just below “The News Hour” and actually flanked NPR listeners in the rankings viewers suggests to me that the survey results do not correlate to the accuracy of the sources.
i think it suggests that the people who listen to political pundits (no matter the bias of those pundits) are going to be more likely to be able identify Libby and Putin and to know the number of US killed in Iraq better than a person who only watches basic cable news.
but if you compare CNN to Fox, Fox loses. in fact, it looks like you’ll learn as much about the world from local TV news as you will from Fox.
Oh, and the inclusion of “viewers” was an editing error. It should have read simply “in the rankings”.
I figured that out, Gromit. Gary’s just not very smart.
cleek: i think it suggests that the people who listen to political pundits (no matter the bias of those pundits) are going to be more likely to be able identify Libby and Putin and to know the number of US killed in Iraq better than a person who only watches basic cable news.
That sounds right to me. It’s basically a measure of how tuned in people are to the basics of what’s going on in the news.
but if you compare CNN to Fox, Fox loses. in fact, it looks like you’ll learn as much about the world from local TV news as you will from Fox.
True, but “which source gives more of the basic information” is a different measure than “which source is more consistently accurate”. Surely you wouldn’t say that Limbaugh is as generally factually correct as NPR or The News Hour, would you? He might be correct on the basic stuff that was in the survey, like who currently holds the majority in congress, or who is currently Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but so, I suspect, would Lou Dobbs. My guess is the survey is just judging which sources are preferred by people who are actively seeking out news, whether those people are looking for accurate information or not (though the low ranking of blogs is surprising, in this regard).
I would certainly agree that the survey doesn’t speak well for Fox, on the other hand.
“Gary’s just not very smart.”
Often true. And presumably “it may be just me who doesn’t understand what this means” is, in your interpretation, a claim otherwise.
Switching topics to discussion of personalities is, however, obviously a mark of keenness. Most thoughtful.
All in jest, Gary. I would guess that just about everyone who regularly reads here thinks that you are, in fact, very smart. I know I do.
“All in jest, Gary.”
Ah. I was also too dumb to know that.
Gosh, the topic of me is endlessly fascinating, isn’t it?
For many of us. Whenever you are away for a few days we will whole threads discussing Gary Farber.
plave “have” after “will”.
I’m tired of plaving.
My guess is the survey is just judging which sources are preferred by people who are actively seeking out news, whether those people are looking for accurate information or not
that’s the no-fun guess. i’m going to guess that it’s because Fox doesn’t bother spending a lot of time telling people things that don’t make Democrats look bad.
Eh, the FCC should fine any so-called “news show” or any pundit who quotes a statistic or a number which is shown to be wrong.
Fine ’em $1M/error. That’ll make certain they check things.
…whether those people are looking for accurate information or not (though the low ranking of blogs is surprising, in this regard).
The blog thing is surprising at first. But on further consideration, there are a lot of utterly mindless blog regulars out there. I only read this and one other blog regularly. I know there are lots of other good ones, but the bad ones are just soooo bad, at least from what I’ve seen, that I’m not surprised by the survey result. I think the kind of people who read worthwhile blogs and make useful comments on them do so secondarily to getting information from other sources. The kind of people who go straight to blogs for information likely do so to reinforce their preferred, if ill-informed, viewpoints. I’m curious what other, more bloggy people here think about my theory.
ooh, i almost forgot! this suggests more than just not paying attention:
Almost shocking was the extent to which Fox News viewers were mistaken. Those who relied on the conservative network for news, PIPA reported, were “three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three.”
Fox really does lie to its viewers.
jesurgislac (quoting Pew) says: “of Americans who watch Fox News Channel, only 35% of them are able to answer at least 15 of 23 questions.”
The survey also concluded that people getting news from online news discussion blogs (this is one) have a much lower knowledge level than those that get it from CNN, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Daily & Colbert, and NPR—
In fact, the blog-readers only scored 37% for high-knowledge level, and 26% for moderate knowledge level: only two points higher than Fox News on the high level, and four points lower than Fox on the moderate level – meaning lower than Fox viewers overall.
That means the dunce-level is about the same, here and there. One out of three know the difference between apples and Ahmadinejad – for the rest, it’s just apple-sauce.
Von: The data doesn’t support a casual link, Cleek.
On the contrary, Von, the data [plural] very clearly do support a casual link.
What they probably don’t support is a causal link.
(Once a pedant, always a pedant, even in retirement.)
(Once a pedant, always a pedant, even in retirement.)
Never apologize! Never retreat!
Eh, the FCC should fine any so-called “news show” or any pundit who quotes a statistic or a number which is shown to be wrong.
Fine ’em $1M/error. That’ll make certain they check things.
I can see it now:
You repeated the statistic that abstinence-only programs fail more than abstinence + condoms programs. We’re sure that’s wrong, so you’re fined $1M. And $10M for saying “global warming,” because that doesn’t exist. And another $50M for repeating lies about Our Leader’s campaign contributions, and…
In a probably vain try to get back to Lou “Leprosy” Dobbs: My personal opinion is that, independent of large numbers of people believing the crap or not, it is part of a deliberate campaign to associate a certain group with negative things. Accusing certain groups of being carriers of diseases (especially those of the ominous kind like plague or leprosy) is an age-old tool usually followed by associating the group directly with vermin (rats, cockroaches etc.). Gays allegedly spread AIDS, Jews the syphilis etc.
That reputable outlets participate in this by not really confronting it when it’s right in front of them, is a bad sign.
Alternate post title: “I’m in ur country, givin u leprosy.”
Hey, Dobbs, Grace, and Beck, the self-satisfied, pale Mussolini, are just CNN’s way of catching up with Limbaugh and Fox’s O’Reilly and Hannity.
The American people are chowing down on demagoguery. They are, as a group, certain individuals excluded (mostly here), f—— dumbasses.
If you look real close, Dobbs has a weird looking thingy on his cheek under the pancake. Might be acne remnants from childhood, but I’d be careful. It could be leprosy, picked up from patroling the southern border.
My name is John Thullen, and I’m happy to start any rumors to destroy s—- like Dobbs.
So here’s the question: Why is hate being broadcast and sponsered by soap, beer, and Chanel #5?
What will it lead to? It’s not going to just dissipate on its own. There is an active monolitihic effort to convince the American people to start butchering those who are different.
John: one of the odder Dobbs-related experiences ever was watching him interview Wes Clark. Clark has a medium-sized head with big features. Dobbs has a very big head with tiny little features. Seeing the two together made Dobbs’ face look like a great big pudding with little tiny raisins in the very middle.
In fact, the blog-readers only scored 37%…
i listen to NPR, read blogs, watch the Daily Show, and read CNN.com. where’s my category?
JT: There is an active monolitihic effort to convince the American people to start butchering those who are different.
When John Thullen starts sounding like bob mcmanus, I get very very frightened.
So now I’m off raisins. 😉
You know, Dobbs was once a reasonable guy, doing pretty good reporting on the markets and his pet interest, space exploration.
Then he looked around during sweeps week and noticed he was light on the ratings.
But I’m serious with this. Demagoguery is being marketed now. You it see across cable…. you see it in the Republican debates (the gays, the Muslims, the liberals, the gay, liberal Muslims, the gay, liberal, Jewish Muslims in Hollywood, the gay, Jewish, Muslim liberals who use psuedonyms on the Internet, who are probably Mexicans) … Bril will be happy to hear that the Democrats can’t be far behind.
It’s Bosnia .. with commercial breaks. America wants a piece of some group; they (we) just can’t decide exactly who to go after.
Since McManus won’t do McManus anymore, I rise to the occasion.
i listen to NPR, read blogs, watch the Daily Show, and read CNN.com. where’s my category?
“Crackpot”.
And speaking of lepers, is anyone more slitheringly unctuous than Nancy Grace?
Fruitcake.
Small point, I think Lou ‘the leper’ Dobbs scans better than Lou ‘leprosy’ Dobbs.
What about Leprotic Lou 😉
the data [plural]
I think the OED recognized ‘data’ as either singular or plural a while ago.
Does this make me a meta-pedant?
(I never tire of this particular debate 🙂 )
No, it makes you (and your OED, for that matter) a flip-flopper. No backbone. No principles. Anything goes. Probably raised on Dr. Spock. Hippy.
There is: One datum. Many data.
That is all.