Poor Construction of Statistics by Media

Poor Construction of Statistics by Media

Introduction

The purpose of the paper is to find two examples from the electronic media that present statistics in a poorly constructed way. The two articles that I have chosen have been taken from the electronic media. One article is on the declining trend of teenage pregnancy in US and the other one is on the The Meatless (and Less Meat) Revolution in the Unites States of America.

Article 1

The first article that I have chosen is from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention on Teen Pregnancy. One thing that is wrong with this example is the fact that reading the article gives one the impression as if teenage pregnancy in the United States of America is not a problem (CDC, 2011). It presents a very positive view of teenage pregnancy statistics in the US emphasizing that the numbers have gone down considerably when this is not true. Truth is the number of live births in Teenage mothers in the United States of America has increased over time.

The basic misinterpretation of this article is that people and the concerned authorities who have only just realized that the number of teenage pregnancies and child births have increased to an alarming extent; the article tilts their attention and presents stats as if it was never really an issue. The attention that the authorities were paying to the problem would not be paid if the authorities truly believe that things are changing for better on their own. The article highlights that the mothers aged between 15-19 years of age have declined by 9% between 2009 and 2010. Even if we assume that the number of pregnancies have declined there was a need for the author to assert why they have so that the efforts that have resulted in the decline of this number may be continued in a positive way.

The correct way to interpret these statistics is to highlight that the decline in the teenage pregnancy has taken place as a consequence of specific efforts initiative taken by the government and other non-governmental organizations working for the cause. This will serve as an evaluation of the initiatives and efforts in this context and will help to improve the statistics further. Moreover, it is essential to highlight the many reasons why some of the stats have remained unchanged. This will be a more ...