Bad news for us?

Posted by Marc Hodak on November 14, 2007 under Scandal | Comments are off for this article

The cases covered in my History of Scandal class are designed to highlight forces behind the evolution of our markets. But many of the questions I raise about the coverage of scandals apply just as well to non-business stories. Take the death of Kanye West’s mother after plastic surgery in light of new findings that her semi-famous surgeon had DUI and malpractice judgments against him. Since the facts are presented without much context, this story provides the illusion of objectivity. But these facts are editorially selected to create a set of predictable inferences by the reader:

a) This guy was a bad doctor
b) Mr. West should perhaps have checked into his background before entrusting his mother to his care

The mainstream media is too careful to make those accusations explicit. They are, instead, taking advantage of their readers’ hindsight bias to connect the dots. Of course, what the reader doesn’t have in this connect-the-dots exercise are all the facts that either weren’t selected, or were deemphasized according to the inverted pyramid model or reporting. Here are some facts I would have liked alongside the ones that were presented:

1) Was Ms. West’s death related to the surgery?
2) If it was related to the surgery, was it related to actions or decisions made by this doctor?
3) If it was related to the doctor’s decisions or actions, was he drunk or otherwise impaired at the time of the operation?
4) Is the number of malpractice judgments against a doctor (at least in the number this doctor has had) a reliable indicator of a doctor’s competence?

The first question, which one might think is pretty important before a person’s reputation is trashed, was sort of answered in 12th paragraph out of 15 in this story–there is no conclusive evidence that this doctor had anything to do with Ms. West’s death. A negative answer to this question would, of course, make the rest of these questions moot, meaning that the “facts” selected for this story would be meaningless.

One of the key lessons in my class is that part of writing any story is the selection of facts. Another lesson is that stories are always more interesting if they are presented as a tragedy or morality play rather than as a matter of accident, or as competing interests with no real villains or heroes. That has obvious implications for the facts that are selected. We will also get to the notion that writers and editors take advantage of hindsight bias in writing their stories.

You don’t sell copy fresh after an unexpected death–or a business collapse–with the headline “We don’t really know why it happened” or, “It may have been an accident/nobody’s fault.” Far from selling newspapers, such headlines would actually unnerve the reader. The mainstream media makes its money selling stories, and stories derive their power, I believe, in part by preserving our collective illusion of control over our world and our fates. Stories, in essence, take advantage of our irrationality, and therefore can often lead to “answers” that ruin people who may not have deserved it, and prescriptions that might not prevent the next scandal.

Speaking of selection, compare the picture of Dr. Adams here and here, versus this: