It Ain't Necessarily So: How Media Make and Unmake the Scientific Picture of Reality - Hardcover

Murray, David; Schwartz, Joel; Lichter, Robert S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0742510956 ISBN 13: 9780742510951

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001

Synopsis

Airplane crashes. The AIDS epidemic. Presidential election polls and voting results. Global warming. The latest cancer scare. All these news stories require scientific savvy first, to report, and then―for news consumers―to understand. It Ain't Necessarily So cuts through the miasma surrounding media reporting of scientific studies, surveys, and statistics. Whether the problem is bad science, media politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge, this book gives news consumers the tools to penetrate the hype and dig out the facts. Don't stop flying, run to the doctor, or change your diet before reading It Ain't Necessarily So.

About this title

About the Author:

David Murray is the director of research at the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS). Joel Schwartz is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and is the author of several books. S. Robert Lichter is co-director of the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) and co-author of over ten books, including Peepshow (ISBN 0742500101). All three authors live in the Washington, DC, metro area.

Review:

Excellent and devastating new book. . . . Provides a real education on media fraud, which is infinitely more important than media bias. (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

This title offers tools to assist in understanding what and how media reports. (Ann Arbor News)

Risk and uncertainty plague our daily lives, especially when they drive media headlines. But savvy consumers of news have a new ally with the appearance of this timely and entertaining read that manages to take the process apart and show us the guts of how news is really made. (John D. Graham, director, Harvard Center for Risk Analysis)

David Murray, Joel Schwartz, and Robert Lichter look beneath the surface of today's journalism and find narrative 'templates' that reflect journalists' ideologies and world views―which are often very different from that of readers, listeners, and viewers. In It Ain't Necessarily So, they show how this results in sloppy reporting, misleading impressions, and the propagation of downright lies. This book helps consumers of journalism make sense of the news―even when the journalists have made nonsense of the statistics. (Michael Barone, senior writer, U.S. News & World Report; co-author, The Almanac of American Politics)

One of the greatest dangers to good public policy is bad reporting on science. It abounds. In this important new book, the authors explore why the media has such a tough time getting the story straight on scientific research. Better yet, they expertly demystify the process, showing consumers why they often get an adulterated media product with little relationship to reality. (James K. Glassman, American Enterprise Institute)

Fake statistics flood the news media these days. This book is the essential antidote. (John Leo, U.S. News & World Reports)

Today agenda-driven social pressures can cloud the media's presentation of the complex enterprise of science. With splendid insight, Murray et al. clear the biases in a powerful and timely primer that leaps the chasm of ignorance to show the facts of science. (Sallie Baliunas, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Readers from all walks of life will acquire a more critical eye from this thought-provoking examination of how science gets served up for our early-morning reading and postprandial evening news. (Publishers Weekly)

Recommended reading for all members of the news media audience. (Skeptical Inquirer)

The authors are respected critics of science reporting. The authors commendably ground their ideas in previous scholarship and provide helpful annotations within chapters. Highly recommended for academic journalism collections serving upper-division undergraduates through faculty and for professional and public libraries. (CHOICE)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0742510956
• ISBN 13: 9780742510951
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256