{"id":942,"date":"2001-10-31T20:39:35","date_gmt":"2001-11-01T01:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=942"},"modified":"2001-10-31T20:39:35","modified_gmt":"2001-11-01T01:39:35","slug":"risks_damned_ri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/31\/risks_damned_ri.html","title":{"rendered":"Risks, damned risks, and statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeffrey Rosen in The New Republic <\/i>writes a good article about the risks of terrorism — and how they are overestimated by an anxious public (and a story-seeking media).<\/p>\n

As new cases of anthrax infection continue to emerge, the World Health Organization is begging people not to panic. But tabloid headlines like this one from The Mirror in London send a different message: “PANIC.” <\/p>\n

[…] Will sensationalistic reports of worst-case terrorist scenarios exaggerate people’s fear of being caught in an attack? There’s every reason to believe that they will because of the media’s tendency to exaggerate the scope and probability of remote risks. In a book called Random Violence, Joel Best, then of Southern Illinois University, examined the “moral panics” about a series of new crimes that seized public attention in the 1980s and ’90s: freeway violence in 1987, wilding in 1989, stalking around 1990, kids and guns in 1991, and so forth. In each case, Best writes, television seized on two or three incidents of a dramatic crime, such as freeway shooting, and then claimed it was part of a broader trend. By taking the worst and most infrequent examples of criminal violence and melodramatically claiming they were typical, television created the false impression that everyone was equally at risk, thereby increasing its audience. <\/p>\n

Rosen disagrees with the Administration issuing non-specific “warning,” like the one this week. I disagree with him, but I also see his point. Certainly to the degree that it’s then amplified by the media, and lacks specificity as to the level of risk, it may just be uselessly churning matters even further.<\/p>\n

(Via InstaPundit<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeffrey Rosen in The New Republic writes a good article about the risks of terrorism — and how they are overestimated by an anxious public (and a story-seeking media). As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49960,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/29\/the-risks-of-the-nuclear-litter-box.html","url_meta":{"origin":942,"position":0},"title":"The Risks of the Nuclear Litter Box","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 29-Mar-15 10:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dude, everyone knows the danger of changing cat litter brands. The results can be truly disastrous ... Cat litter to blame for radiation leak at New Mexico nuclear waste facility View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":583,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/09\/14\/modern_risks.html","url_meta":{"origin":942,"position":1},"title":"Modern RISKS","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Sep-01 6:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"For a number of years now, I've subscribed to an e-mail version of comp.risks, RISKS-L. This list\/Usenet site details \"risks to the public in computers and related systems.\" While that...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25842,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/31\/usually-its-the-students-that-exaggerate-their-scores.html","url_meta":{"origin":942,"position":2},"title":"Usually it's the students that exaggerate their scores","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 31-Jan-12 3:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Embarrassing behavior from CMC (a close neighbor of my own alma mater). #ddtb Embedded Link Claremont McKenna College Says It Exaggerated SAT Figures Claremont McKenna College said it submitted false SAT scores to publications like U.S. News & World Report that use the data in widely followed college rankings.","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30029,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/30\/the-risks-of-a-walled-garden.html","url_meta":{"origin":942,"position":3},"title":"The risks of a walled garden","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 30-Aug-12 6:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"When your purchases of stuff -- both the hardware you buy and the soft assets (software, music, etc.) -- are all dependent on a single vendor to continue working and be accessible or of value ... then sooner or later it's all going to go away when that vendor decides\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25755,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/26\/the-risks-of-a-disastrous-presidential-campaign.html","url_meta":{"origin":942,"position":4},"title":"The risks of a disastrous presidential campaign","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Jan-12 12:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Number one of which is that your voters might look at how poorly you did, what doltish things you said, and how you mishandled the various campaign crises you faced, and decide that, no, they don't want you back home, either.Of course, it's too soon to tell with Perry --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42062,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/19\/americans-exaggerate-how-often-they-attend-church.html","url_meta":{"origin":942,"position":5},"title":"Americans exaggerate how often they attend church","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 19-May-14 7:33am","format":false,"excerpt":"A new study indicates a significant difference between how frequently people say they attend depending on whether they are being surveyed on the phone or online, concluding that social expectations even with a stranger on the telephone will cause people to report they are attending church more frequently than they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}