Give ‘Em The Old One-Two
Think Progress looks to be taking a leaf out of The Independent’s playbook:
35. Number of words the current issue of TIME magazine devotes to Judge Anna Diggs Taylor?s ruling that President Bush?s warrantless domestic wiretapping program is unconstitutional.
1,109. The number of words in the same issue on the extradition of John Mark Karr. (HT: Bill in Portland Maine) August 21, 2006 1:06 pm
Good to see this tactic being used to such effect; it’s just the sort of bullet-pointed, starkly framed statistical comparison that the Independent does so well, and it can be devastatingly effective in political argument. Just two numbers, compare and contrast, either/or. No, it’s not nuanced or fuzzy or even a very liberal way of arguing, but a little stark denunciatory simplicity is definitely called for when the right continually and deliberately obfuscates with language and muddies the water of public debate by dumping reams of rubbish stats that can’t be properly checked.
Read more: UK media, US media, Framing, Statistics Political tactics, US Constitutional crisisGeorge Bush.Anna Diggs Taylor
