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- Newsgroups: bit.listserv.stat-l
- Path: sparky!uunet!utcsri!torn!nott!cunews!aboltwoo
- From: aboltwoo@alfred.carleton.ca (Alana Boltwood)
- Subject: Re: Public Presence of Statisticians
- Message-ID: <aboltwoo.726518236@cunews>
- Sender: news@cunews.carleton.ca (News Administrator)
- Organization: Carleton University
- References: <STAT-L%93010722063636@VM1.MCGILL.CA>
- Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 18:37:16 GMT
- Lines: 42
-
- In <STAT-L%93010722063636@VM1.MCGILL.CA> EJOHNSO3@UA1VM.BITNET writes:
-
- >Bob Parker asked:
-
- >How can we (statisticians) make it apparent to people who run news shows
- >(as one example) that maybe they ought to have statisticians talking about
- >statistical issues?
- >- - -
-
- >Here Bob makes the common assumption that there is a positive correlation be-
- >tween managing "news" shows and the design to correctly inform, when in fact
- >there is no significant relationship. At best they are independent variables,
- >if not mutually exclusive. The confounding variable is ratings. The sole rea-
- >son the major networks now carry "news" shows is to sell air time. You can bet
- >if the networks can get higher ratings by offering more entertainment than
- >facts during the "news" they surely will.
-
- >Here's the best example I know of this. An extraordally gifted masters student
- >of mine auditioned as a weekend anchor in a mid-sized market. No one could
- >match his journalistic skills, but he failed to get the job because his eyes
- >didn't match the teddybear image they wanted to play off the woman anchor. It
- >was enough for me to forget cable TV payments and invest that money in a news-
- >paper subscription. I know those folks aren't hired for their looks.
-
- Bob Parker was talking about the McNeil-Lehrer news hour, on public
- TV. This network and this show aims for a thinking audience and is
- not so beholden to advertisers as the commercial networks. So his
- point still stands: why, along with the other experts, was there not
- a statistician on the panel?
-
- I might also point out that neither Robert McNeil nor Jim Lehrer is
- much of a "teddy-bear", as you put it.
-
-
- Sorry to take this so seriously. As for the commercial networks, the
- uncorrelated nature of the relationship holds.
-
- Alana Boltwood (aboltwoo@ccs.carleton.ca)
- 4th year BA Hons Statistics student, Carleton Univ., Ottawa, Canada
- (Grad. May '93, looking for social science research work)
-