BC Cook
JOURNALISTS have a saying that if a story is guaranteed to get attention and it fits the narrative they are pushing, it is “too good to check.”
That means that they take the story at face value and expect readers to take it also, without bothersome things like checking for accuracy. After all, you might find that the story is not what you thought it was. Better to run the version you like than risk losing the story because of facts.
I have assembled a few stories from recent years that were too good to check. See if you remember them:
The Year of the Shark: Several surfers were attacked by sharks in the waters around Florida in 2001. The media quickly dubbed it the Year of the Shark and declared that, for some strange reason but probably global warming, shark attacks had become an epidemic. In fact, for some strange reason this drastic rise in shark attacks will bring down the American economy because vacationers will stop going to the beaches, wrecking coastal communities and causing widespread chaos. Florida might even depopulate.
In reality, 2001 saw no significant increase in shark attacks. The facts showed that shark attacks were about normal, statistically even with the previous hundred years. So why the panic? 2001 was not an election year. In fact, until the terrorist attacks of September 11, nothing major happened that year. The media needed a juicy story to draw viewers and readers, so once Katie Couric declared the Year of the Shark everyone else ran with it without looking at the numbers. The story was too good to check.
Crack Babies: Experts, defined as scientists who agree with what you already believe, declared that if we didn’t do something about the problem of babies born to crack-addicted mothers, the country would soon be swarming with a generation of drug addict babies. The children would not only have a crack problem, they would suffer from physical defects, mental disabilities and social deviance. It was imperative that the country launch a government supported social crusade to stop female crack addicts from having babies.
In reality, children born to mothers addicted to crack do struggle, but no more than those born to smokers or heavy drinkers. Alcohol, tobacco and drugs such as crack all hinder fetal development but there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of crack baby monsters that the story spoke of. By the time the children reached school age most of them had made up the difference anyway, and even experts could not identify children born to crack mothers from those that were not. But everyone fretted over crack babies. The story was too good to check.
Teachers’ worries: Remember the survey comparing teachers in the 1940s and modern teachers? It said that back in the day teachers’ main worries about students were talking, chewing gum, making noise and running in the halls. But the main worries today are drugs, pregnancy, suicide and rape. The survey proved how much society had declined in a few decades and illustrated the depravity of modern youth. Everyone ran the story from the New York Times to Ann Landers, and Congress discussed its implications for policy.
In reality, the survey never existed. When a Yale professor tried to locate the original source, everyone said they borrowed the story from someone else. The Times took the story from the Congressional Quarterly, who took it from the Wall Street Journal, and so on, and so on. When the original source was tracked down, the man said he made it up. He said he was a student in the 40s and knows how it is now. There never was a survey.
There is an old saying that 80% of statistics are made up on the spot. If you don’t get that one, let me tell you about how the CIA invented crack cocaine in a conspiracy to kill black people. Why am I writing this now? Don’t you get the feeling that way too many stories in the news these days are “too good to check?”
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for over 30 years. He is a director and historian at Sealark Exploration (sealarkexploration.org).
