| Dr. Leukoma 2004-10-06, 7:06 pm |
| Blah, blah.
I posted another link in which Mary Pierce appeared in quotes discussing
the bad results of her LASIK surgery. You choose to ignore it.
What you are doing is similar to what Senator Edwards did last night in the
VP debates, which was to switch the subject from the present facts to
something obscure and immaterial, i.e. whether the journalist drew the
conclusion or Mary said it. I found the source where she "said it."
The facts are that Mary Pierce had LASIK surgery, and in numerous press
interviews discussed her problems with night vision. The same with
Jennifer Capriati.
DrG
RT <RTMD24nospam@yahoo.com> wrote in
news:JSU8d.24779$QJ3.12397@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com:
> In article <Xns957A6DC975F4DDrLeukoma@207.217.125.201>,
> "Dr. Leukoma" <drg@leukoma.com> wrote:
>
>
> Yes, that is called spin and it happens all the time. Hardly ever is
> it framed as spin, however.
>
> Unfortunately, that is not always the case. What is quoted in an
> article is often as important as what has been left out. There have
> been numerous examples of that on this NG. I don't believe that any
> article, even one in a newspaper, is ever purely objective and
> factual. The danger is that people do take news articles at their face
> value if it resonates with their preconceived notions and will not
> pursue further research.
>
> Again, that link about Pierce is very revealing. Yes, the journalist
> writes facts, ie. Pierce is having night vision problems; Pierce has
> had LASIK. It is the way in which it is written that implies a
> connection between the two events. No where is that overtly stated.
> It is what the journalist chooses to reveal.
>
> The article could have just as easily left out the fact that Pierce
> had LASIK surgery--because in that article the journalist chooses to
> quote Pierce as saying she was slow and had trouble focusing on the
> ball. She may not have said anything about LASIK to the reporter, so
> the journalist made sure to add that tidbit as a descriptive clause,
> not a quote.
>
> It really is similar to a case Minarik had and has talked about
> publicly. A woman came to see him complaining of some eye problems.
> She had had LASIK, and being anti-LASIK he immediately assumed the two
> conditions were linked. It turned out that she was suffering from MS
> symptoms. He didn't think to search beyond his assumptions.
>
> To continue to play the role of devil's advocate: Couldn't it be just
> as likely, but would take more work, to read the Pierce article as:
> Pierce is having night vision problems; Pierce has had LASIK; Pierce
> has had allergy related conjuctivitis because the pollen has been
> especially bad this year. That last fact was left out by the
> reporter. Remember--she had not seen a doctor yet when this article
> was written. That fact was in there to at least cast some doubt on the
> conclusion the reporter most likely wanted the reader to draw. If the
> reporter had left out the fact that Pierce had had LASIK, the reader
> would not be able to draw any conclusion, especially since she had not
> seen an eye doctor yet.
>
> So, to answer your question above there is a danger--people who have a
> preconceived notion or bias are NOT likely to do more
> research--especially when an article "appears" objective and balanced.
> They are more likely to jump to conclusions because 2 "facts" are
> listed next to each other.
>
> It happens all the time on this NG. One way is to write a subject line
> that has very little to do with the content of the post.
>
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