Origamist
Legendary Member
garrilla said:My point, ill made as usual, was that it was impossible for the journo to make a correct statistical appraisal in under 500 words. However, because the significance between the two metrics was huge, it was OK to make this kind of simple statistical conflation - those in the know should see that, those who don't wont care.
There is a major problem with peices like this. SHould the journo write the story without the evidence or, for the sake of getting issues raised, do we allow a bit of technical slippage?
Trust me, if it was an academic paper or government report I would already have fired off a letter. It was a small journalistic item that made a fair point badly, so I'm far less concerned.
Quoting the London gender breakdown would have been more logical as the 7/8 female fatality figure was London based and it was this has brought the issue to the BBC's attention.
The article focussed on 2009. It did not examine the gender/fatality/ HGV breakdown in previous years in London. This would have provided a more robust framework to understand the issue. It could be that 2009 was a blip as the BBC article mentions in a throw-away comment at the beginning of the piece, but equally it could be part of a wider trend in the last 15 years or so.
I know criticising journos/copy is easy, but I do think we should examine the article in more detail and highlight methodological flaws (amongst others).