Crime and Punishment Part II

While I was writing my rant about the Herald's treatment of crime and violence yesterday, Jasmatbhai Patel, the man beaten up for dinging someone's BMW, died in hospital. 'Christ, what an awful, pointless waste of two lives', was what I thought as I read the article; my mind boggled as I tried to comprehend what might motivate someone to beat someone to death, let alone an elderly man over a minor accident.

Sorry if my usual wry cynicism has been replaced by empathy. But this is exactly the point that I was trying to make yesterday. It's because of the strong emotional impact that these stories have that we - and by we, I mean the Herald, oddly enough - have to be particularly careful with how they are reported. There are many issues here; one is that, to me, 'level of emotional engagement' seems to be the appropriate criterion for an article appearing in Woman's Day, not a 'serious' newspaper. Another is that when everyone, including the people at the Herald, know that the media coverage of crime strongly, and often misleadingly, influences public opinion (and then leads to rubbish like the 'three strikes' law, not to mention people being afraid to leave their homes), crime reporting ought to be held to particularly high standards.

That's what I said yesterday - or, at least, that's what I meant. A couple of anonymous people had issues in the comments with what I said. One person, apparently mistaking EtH for a site that talks about every article the Herald runs, complained that if all my complaints were taken into account the Herald would come out as a wad of blank paper every day. (Some may claim that would be an improvement, har har.) I read over my article again and struggled to find the part where I argued that violent crime ought not to be reported - I merely claimed that it should be reported in a more considered and less sensationalised way. As to his/her question about what I want in a newspaper:

• coverage of local politics and issues, which I generally feel the Herald does reasonably well, which is why I rarely write about it (sorry).
• some critical analysis and investigation of national politics, which the Herald is generally terrible at.
• coverage of world news more robust than stealing articles from the Daily Telegraph on Madonna adopting a baby.
• a cryptic crossword.

Another person complained thusly:

Anonymous said...

"The first thing that ought to be said is that one's chances of being murdered are (and were even at the peak) pretty microscopic... murder probably deserves far less of the front page than it gets for that fact alone."

I see. Should newspapers across the world ignore them then, cos they don't happen that often? Should we have more stories about people going to the shops, because that happens quite a bit? Should all stories be given prominence based on 'how often they happen'?

This seems to be a rather creative interpretation of what I said. My point, I thought, was clear - I was talking about the link between people reading sensationalised reports of violent crime and believing in a (false) rise in murder rates - you never hear the Herald say that you're very unlikely to be murdered. Anonymous's claim that I am basically arguing that "all stories [should] be given prominence based on 'how often they happen'" seems like a fairly radical straw man argument to me - I don't know what else anyone thinks, but feel free to throw in your two cents. Let me re-iterate: I believe that violent crime ought to be reported differently, not 'not at all', precisely because of the powerful impact the reporting has on people - even grumpy old me.

Viva la Vivawatch

Last week's Viva was the recession issue. The makers of the, er, supplement finally recognised the effect of the economic crisis, and that certain economic factors may have changed for the long term. This week, the first page advertises a $1029 handbag and a $1950 pair of boots.

Anyway, you know, whatevs.

Crime and Punishment

"A minor crash, a punch and a fight for life" is how the Herald headlines the lead story today. I'm no subeditor, but I suppose "Man attacked after car crash" doesn't look quite as good. The rest of the article is your standard post-assault report; the lack of much of interest to say means that the usual comments are dredged up from friends and neighbours - the victim was "a friendly and quiet man who loved gardening" and who "would never hurt a fly", as if brutally beating (it's now a murder case as the man has since died) a 78-year-old man would be otherwise OK. The Herald broke out the red ink for the "ROAD RAGE" header, because that is a category of story on the same level as 'Politics' or 'Health'. But then, of course, the country and the media are gripped in road rage fever, while I would hazard a guess that 99.9% of New Zealanders' road trips end in nothing more outrageous than pulling (or receiving) the fingers. But that's certainly not front page news.

And this is the point. I'm not claiming that murders and crime in general aren't news of importance to people - they certainly are. I'm simply claiming that they're not the only news in town, and they shouldn't trump other things of more real importance to more people. I guess that I am also saying that they are poorly reported as well, but that's another issue. It seems clear that this emphasis on violence is no mistake - unfortunately, blood sells. Also unfortunate is the amount of influence the media has over peoples' beliefs in this area. For example, a survey of New Zealanders, published in Monday's Herald, found that only 11 per cent of New Zealand city-dwellers felt safe in their city centre at night - and they cited "media coverage of crime" as one of the major reasons.

A fascinating article in yesterday's paper - yes, yesterday's New Zealand Herald - had more on this phenomenon:

An institute survey of 1400 people in four parts of New Zealand - including South Auckland - found that 80 per cent agreed or strongly agreed that the country's crime rate was rising. Only 4 per cent disagreed.

Yet the same survey - which has yet to be published - found that only a quarter of the people surveyed believed crime was rising in their own neighbourhoods.

When asked where they got their information about the national crime rate, people said from the media.

So, most people can't see any increase in crime in their own neighbourhoods - it's just the other places in the country where their only reference is the media. The reason for the publication of the survey results is that someone (it's unclear from the article whether it is the police themselves or criminologist Michael Rowe) has analysed police statistics showing that the murder rate has halved over the past 20 years, from a peak of 21 per million people between 1985 and 1992 to 12 per million today. The first thing that ought to be said is that one's chances of being murdered are (and were even at the peak) pretty microscopic, and murder probably deserves far less of the front page than it gets for that fact alone. The second, and possibly more important, point is that the mainstream media, led by New Zealand's Newspaper of Record (TM), are telling the country - albeit (mostly) implicitly - that murders and violent crime in general are radically on the rise. But they're not; you're only half as likely to get murdered in New Zealand today than you were 20 years ago. So why does the media not reflect that?

I've already given my answer - blood sells. Even this article, with its fascinating, iconoclastic statistics, is poor in other areas; the second half of the article is dedicated to detailed consideration of why the statistics might be misleading, even though Dr Rowe implies that, if anything, the statistics would underrepresent the drop since the 1980s. No consideration is given either to why the rate might have dropped or why people think the opposite, apart from that last, anaemic sentence that stands out at the end of the quote above like a sore thumb. Infuriatingly, the article in the paper ends with this ad for the Herald website, which manages to give the finger to any intelligent person who read the article:

What's the answer to violent crime? Have your say at nzherald.co.nz

Another serious issue is that, given how much column space the Herald dedicates to crime and violence, very little investigative journalism seems to be done on it. Why has it taken so long to find out about the murder statistics? Why have they come from an academic, rather than a journalist? The question must be asked again about the article directly next door on page A5 - evidently less important than boy racers, and knights and dames - which reports that an Official Information Act request by a penal reform group called Rethinking Crime and Punishment (RCP) has led to the finding that ACT's proposed 'three strikes' law would not actually have saved any lives. During the election, Rodney Hide claimed that 77 lives would have been saved if a 'three strikes' law had been in place, because the murderers would already have been in prison. RCP's figures show that this is complete bollocks, and none of those killers would have been in prison due to 'three strikes'. To be fair, the article - especially the headline, "'Three strikes' comes a cropper" - and today's analysis by Patrick Gower both come down on ACT and say it damages the policy's credibility. But the damage has largely been done - Hide and his crony David Garrett are already in parliament. The time for the Herald to blow the whistle on these numbers was during the election, when Hide made the brazen claim. Again, it was left up to non-journalists to break this significant story.

I would like to think that more debate will follow in the media about these statistics, the media's use - or non-use - of them, and the way that they negatively influence both political discourse and people's general happiness. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

Lend me your eyes

Moaning pensioners: According to an OECD survey, a lower proportion (equal with the Netherlands and the Czech Republic) of pensioners are below the poverty line than in any other OECD country.

Michael Littlewood, co-director of the University of Auckland Retirement Policy and Research Centre, said: "There are several possible explanations for New Zealand's favourable international position but the most obvious difference between New Zealand and the other 29 OECD countries is the simple, generous New Zealand superannuation pension."

Well, that's good news, right? But trust old people to see the dark cloud next to their silver lining:

However, social policy researcher Charles Waldegrave said if the study were to use the official New Zealand poverty threshold (60 per cent of disposable income levels), New Zealand would place last in the same study. "Most of our superannuants sit in the band between 50 and 60 per cent of median household income."

So... what if the other countries in the study used those same criteria? Would we still come last? Thanks anyway, Charles.

Grey Power president Les Howard said that older people still struggled financially in New Zealand because of flaws in our superannuation system and the effect of the economic downturn.

He's right. I hereby recommend that all old people move to one of those countries that have not been affected by the economic downturn. You know... those ones... over there...


Think tank wank: Remember popular British PM Tony Blair? Remember how popular he ended up? Remember all those popular initiatives he introduced? Private financing of public projects (or is it the other way around?); Anti-Social Behaviour Orders; the Iraq War. Well, one of the people behind all this innovation is here to advise our government on how to shoot themselves in the foot. What is his innovation? Innovation.

Apparently social innovation is the key to beating the economic crisis, according to Young Foundation founder Geoff Mulgan, rather than bailing out carmakers and retail banks. Which, funnily enough, is exactly what his (and Blair's) own government is doing at the moment, so perhaps he would be of more use over there.

Anyway, what a load of wank.


Opinion-ated: Welcome back to Rebecca Barry, opinion columnist. Today's opinion: aren't scooters great? Thanks for that. Please don't click the link.


Editing the Telegraph: Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on the New Zealand Herald:

The Herald was traditionally seen as a staid centre-right newspaper, and given the nickname "Granny Herald" into the 1990s. This changed with the acquisition of the paper by Independent News & Media in 1996, and today the Herald is generally editorially centre-left on international geopolitics, diplomacy, and military matters, often printing material from British newspapers such as The Independent and The Observer...

Centre-left, you say? Damn librul media. Anyway, this made me laugh when I read it, having looked through the World section of yesterday's paper. Only nine things happened in the world on Sunday, and three of them involved Barack Obama. One of them was what his wife wore. But I digress. The point is that eight of those nine articles were sourced from the Daily/Sunday Telegraph - aka the Torygraph, the broadsheet of the conservative political right. It's not so much that I care about the bias of the world section - it's not as if I get my world news from the Herald - but more that they seem to be more concerned with bulk-buying from one news outlet than getting the 'best' coverage of world events. Today all the world articles are sourced either from the Telegraph or Associated Press, the ultimate source for lazy editors. Perhaps the Telegraph are running some sort of 'buy one, get one free' scheme. At any rate, the Herald need to update their Wikipedia page.


Bainwatch:

• Today's headline: Injured Stephen Bain 'fought killer for his life'. Sensationalise-o-meter rating: 6/10
• Bloodwatch, brought to you by Bainwatch: Four mentions of 'blood' and its cognates ('bloody', 'bleeding' etc.)
  

Knightwatch

"Knight is right - old-style honours suit new candidates", says a frontpage headline on today's Herald. Quite why the Herald has such a hard-on over the whole titles issue is beyond me, unless the editorial board are scoping for a title themselves.

More than half the 85 honours recipients offered the option of becoming knights or dames say they want the titles.

Is that news? I don't just mean, 'Should we be surprised that most people want something rather than nothing?'. I more mean 'Should we be particularly interested that the huge milestone of half the potential recipients saying yes has been passed?'. But I am also interested in what the people have to say about accepting the honour.

• Maori leader 'Sir' Harawira Gardiner: "I think it's not mine to turn down. A lot of people have worked hard alongside me and this is a recognition of that." [Although I don't believe they get to use the title.]
• Rugby player and man-about-town Colin Meads has not accepted "yet", which doesn't sound like news until one realises that every utterance from the man is considered gospel by the Herald. I suggest a 24-hour Meadswatch, with a reporter live on the scene day and night until he makes up his mind.
• Business leader Eion Edgar has said yes - "a decision that had been made easier by a push from friends, family and the wider community": "The day after it was announced I was a recipient, I must have got more than 80 texts, emails and calls saying 'Please accept'." But how many did he receive saying to turn it down? Typically poor investigative journalism from the Herald.
• Winemaker George Fistonich: "We thought it was good for the wine industry and also for our family to accept to, so I have."

So no one actually just wants to be called 'Sir' then. And yes, I know that if people came out and said that I would hassle them as well. Looks like being a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit is a truly tough no-win situation!

Possibly the most interesting part of the story is how the Herald seems to think that the fact people are accepting the titles means that the reversion to titles was a good policy. In the same way, people accepting their tax cuts is a good indicator that they are justified. I thereby propose bringing back all feudal titles to New Zealand. We'll then see if it turns out that someone becoming Grand Archduke - to be addressed by the hoi polloi as 'Your Grace' - helps the wine industry.

House prices

Sorry about the absence - I've been helping my girlfriend move house for the last two days. Now, where were we?

I don't normally care what's written in the Weekend Herald. The Saturday edition generally makes the weekday paper look good, although neither of them really measure up to the sheer perfection of the Herald on Sunday. Anyway, the lead article in Saturday's paper screamed that the housing market was suddenly booming - "Auckland house sales soared 65pc in March, firm reports". The firm in question was none other than real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson, a company which definitely has no interest in the public thinking it's a great time to buy and sell houses. It's not a new thing in the Herald - ever since property prices started dropping, the Herald has been running puff pieces talking up the prospects for the real estate market.

In Saturday's piece, economist Gareth Morgan - seemingly the go-to guy for economic comment ever since his son made him rich by selling Trade Me, but also seemingly a reasonably onto-it person - said " the sales figures were not something to get excited about."

"It's a long haul this whole recession ... I don't see the data as significant in terms of signalling any turning point.

That would explain, then, why the Herald led with this story, with the numbers (increased numbers of house sales over last month and last year) in giant red letters on the front page. But the Herald does warn us not to get too excited:

[...] some economists are warning sellers and buyers not to get too excited yet.

In fact, every single person quoted in the article who is not in the real estate industry warns that the data are essentially meaningless in terms of long-term trends. To be fair, and as is reasonably common in the Herald, the headlines write cheques that the article can't cash. Although the real estate agents are obviously gagging to get on the front page and tell people to leap into the market, they're not completely unreasonable. According to the chief executive of Harcourts:

"We're judging the sales numbers against historically low levels. So while
they're better than they have been, it's not time for people to jump up and down
and say we're on the cusp of another wave.

Nonetheless, there is an element of "Fishmongers declare fish is delicious" in this 'story'. Quite why this article exists in the form and place it does is an interesting question. Essentially it's not much of a story, according to almost everyone involved; it's more of an ad for real estate agents. Why would the Herald run this as a lead? Well, according to the editorial in this week's Listener - like 90% of the print media in this country, an APN stablemate of the Herald - major newspapers are heavily reliant on real estate ads, like those in the Herald Homes supplement in Saturday's paper. The terrible state of the housing market, and thence the shrinking of the real estate advertising budget, has made things worse for newspapers in a time of crisis for print journalism. But I'll be damned if I have any sympathy for the people making these decisions.

Comment is free

In an interesting and labour-saving development, a Herald article on the economic cost of sick days sparked quite a discussion in the comments thread of something I wrote yesterday about something completely different. This is the labour-saving bit now:

Gwan said...

May I draw your attention to the article on how it's allegedly cheaper to skive off work? The Herald's inability to comprehend basic maths strikes again...

Anonymous said...

the numbers seem fairly solid, if you think there are 1.3 million people working in new zealand.

but it's one of those numbers-that-mean-absolutely-nothing stories.

and the answer to all of them? so f*cking what?

Anonymous said...

actually, I take that back. the story doesn't state how large the NZ workforce is. first, big mistake.

second: WTF are the 700 and 900 about? per day? per week? per year? and they conflict with the $1500 figure stated in the intro. where does that one come from?

in conclusion: bollocks.

gazzaj said...

The problem with the maths is that in terms of *total* cost over the whole workforce, people turning up to work sick costs more, because it happens more often - 11.1 days/year vs 4.2.

But in terms of an individual person on an individual day it (obviously) costs more to take a sicky than it does to turn up to work - but the headline says the exact opposite.

There aren't enough numbers quoted to check their maths, but basically everything in the article is consistent, just contradicted by the headline, which is not what the study says at all. The Herald is blatantly lying to you.

Anyway the whole thing *is* bollocks because it's all built on the assumption that a sick worker is "half as productive" as a well one. I don't know about you but I doubt a lot of scientific research went into coming up with that number.

Wansbone said...

To start with I gave the benefit of the doubt to the reporter, and assumed that there was something study about people coming in sick lengthen their own period of sickness, and make other people sick.

But based on the final two paragraph summarising the reports conclusions, I think the report must have simply been about working out the cost to ill health on the economy. And the reporter just didn't get it. You would think reporters would run their draft stories past their interviewees if they weren't sure...

Gwan said...

Yeah from the headline I would have assumed that that would be the story as well, but apparently not. If you can't work out that coming in sick = (allegedly) 50% productivity loss but not coming in at all = 100% productivity loss then you're a tard frankly.

Anonymous said...

I noticed the article refered to pulling a sicky, which I thought meant taking a day off work and claiming illness rather than actually necessarily being ill. Meaning that the article claimed people who turned up to work ill were less productive than people who stayed home healthy (or just feeling lazy).

To be fair to the Herald, the original NZPA article and headline was atrocious, and reporter Isaac Davison - in the adapted piece that is in the physical paper today - has done a reasonable job of polishing a turd, even if he's just polished it with another turd, Business NZ chief executive Phil O'Reilly. Anyway, thanks to all who contributed to the discussion, and sorry I couldn't write anything you actually wanted to talk about.