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Just realized that article claiming 'city crime rates dropped 20%' used a completely different neighborhood boundary than last year's data
I spotted it when the map they linked showed a small shaded area that excluded the three precincts with the highest incident counts, so has anyone else caught this kind of stat manipulation in local news pieces about crime trends?
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felixm293d ago
Man, I used to think local news was pretty straight up with crime stats. I figured if they said crime dropped, it dropped. But a couple months back I was looking at this report about our downtown area and something felt off. They kept saying "reported incidents per capita" and when I dug into the PDF they linked, the footnotes said the data only included calls to 911 from a specific patrol zone that had just been expanded to include a rich neighborhood with no crime. Totally changed my view. Now I won't touch a crime article unless I can see how they defined the boundaries. Have you ever found a local news source that actually explains their methodology clearly?
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olivia_lopez983d ago
idk that's actually wild. so they basically just redrew the map to make the numbers look good? i mean i've noticed local stations doing that thing where they compare "downtown" crime stats from last year to "uptown" stats this year, but the three highest precincts being left out is next level. i saw a similar trick in a piece about our city last month - they claimed burglaries were down 15% but only counted the west side where most houses have alarms. the east side where all the break-ins actually happen? conveniently not mentioned. it's crazy how easily they can spin stuff with just a few adjustments to the data's edges.
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