A professor in the John Hopkins University School of Nursing published, a decade ago, an alleged statistical finding of a rather shocking nature: “the leading cause of death in the United States among African American women aged 15 to 45 years,” she and her colleagues wrote, was “femicide, the homicide of women,” clarified as “intimate partner violence.” Domestic homicide.
Attorney General Eric Holder passed along the statistic. It got a lot of attention. You’ll find the claim on government websites and on YouTube.
Thankfully, it is not true.
Christina Hoff Sommers first blew the lid off the bad statistic in 2011. More recently, writes Wendy McElroy at Reason,
the Washington Post fact checker, Glenn Kessler investigated Holder’s statement and published his results. Kessler wrote that CDC “data show that, for the year 2008 (the year before Holder’s speeches), cancer, heart disease, unintentional injury and HIV/AIDS all topped homicide. Then if you break out intimate-partner homicide, that ends up being seventh or eighth on the list (depending on whether you also include all homicides.)” As a basis of comparison, in 2008, cancer killed 1,871 black females; heart disease, 1,629; all homicides, 326.
You can see the motive to up the numbers. One instance of domestic violence ending in death is horrific, but thousands would carry more political weight.
Wendy McElroy, upon whose reportage I am entirely and confidently reliant, asks if the truth would have the “same media appeal as sensationalized falsehoods.” She concludes, sadly, with “Perhaps the media can be shamed into valuing the truth.”
We depend upon the honesty and good will of our fellow citizens — scientists, journalists, bureaucrats and politicians the most. Inaccuracies are bad; lies are worse. The truth can set us free. But falsehood is mainly useful to hoodwink us.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
7 replies on “Lying Will Not Set Us Free”
The “truth” does not help the agenda.
Is it ” relevant” truth? Sort of like is something good or evil? Depends upon the circumstances— the libertards view, in many instances ( when it is in their favor, or thir view).
next to last word- last line– “their”– typo error
It is (see my above posts) situation lying, like situation ethics.
if the situation calls for a lie, then lie.
There is virtually no such thing as a journalist anymore.
Oh, contraire! Besides Paul Jacob there are also good people all over the internet and even those like Greenwald who take huge risks.I am optimistic as the exposure is almost happening faster than they can make up the second lie to correct the first. We are making progress!
The government has captured the media, jut like regulated companies often capture the regulators, and get them to help restrict the competition and ensure their profits.