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RE: Terrorism Data (a lesson in data journalism) [OC]

in #politics7 years ago

This type of bias is well-known and also applies to many areas like disease incidences (in the past the diagnosis methods were not that advanced, like here the search methods). If your conclusion is that terrorism is NOT increasing, then this message is equally flawed. First of all, there is no evidence that in absolute numbers it is not increasing, as we can´t really compare for the reasons you have mentioned, and secondly, I find such a message too much smelling like appeasement. It could be used by the "Gutmenschen" to say "see, it is not worsening, this is just a statistic artifact". In fact, I don´t care if it is worsening or not as this is not the point. The point is that such acts do happen, and they happen too often, and we should do whatever is possible to not have them happen by not supporting ideologies and groups working indirectly towards terrorism (I include here our government, lefties, etc)! To call information about terrorism acts "fear mongering" is cynical, please tell it to the victims.

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Thanks for your input! You make a very valid point that it can be used to fuel the "downplaying" of terrorism as well. However, I have to correct you that i am cynical in that I

"call information about terrorist acts "fear mongering"

I merely said that often what looks like "hard data" can be abused to stir fear among people.

Here, I am only hoping to communicate to anyone interested in data journalism or using data sources in journalistic ways, to simply take a deeper look before drawing conclusions.