Dear Jim,
Great letter.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin LCAMS
On 2008/11/26, at 5:03 AM, James Frysinger wrote:
Dear FoxNews Online editor,
On your website today I read your synopsis
British Marine Rugby Tackles Homicide Bomber in Afghanistan
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,457364,00.html
of a story in the Daily Mail (UK)
Hero Royal Marine saved 130 soldiers by rugby tackling suicide bomber
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1089227/Hero-Royal-Marine-saved-130-soldiers-rugby-tackling-suicide-bomber.html#
This appeared on your website November 25.
I suggest that you do some training with your story editors. In this
case your synopsis claimed to be quoting the Daily Mail's story that
the suicide bomber transported 154 pounds of explosives and it
continued, "Explosives experts told The Mail that had the bomb gone
off it would have destroyed everything within a 590-foot radius."
That would be a flat-out lie.
In fact, the Daily Mail reported that there were 70 kilograms of
explosives and they said the destruction radius would have been 180
meters. I'm sure the experts gave that information to the Daily Mail
in terms of kilograms and meters and obviously the Daily Mail was
professional enough to report the information as given.
The story editor that did this needs to have his or her calculator
taken away and smashed flat. As a replacement, hand him or her a
couple 500 mL bottles of water and tell them that they collectively
contain a kilogram of water. Tell them to imagine lifting 140 of
those half-liter bottles. Have them watch old tapes of the last
Olympic Games broadcast in the U.S. for us Americans to enjoy. Have
them take notes on the 100 m races. Even without a calculator, they
can realize that 180 m is nearly twice that distance.
If your staff cannot deal with metric units, get new staff members.
Most Americans can handle them well enough to understand news
articles that use them. At least get staff members who don't feel
obliged to "translate" English stories for Americans to read. It's
time for innumerate journalists to take their personal biases out of
stories they edit and to stop misquoting figures that are given to
them.
James R. Frysinger
--
James R. Frysinger
632 Stony Point Mountain Road
Doyle, TN 38559-3030
(H) 931.657.3107
(C) 931.212.0267
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
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