A widely shared article by the Washington Post’s Philip Bump has been corrected numerous times since publication, but of course the correction isn’t the one going viral.
First up, here’s Bump’s original tweet promoting the article noting that “the number of people killed in school shootings in 2018 is nearly double the number of servicemember casualties.” A pretty stark claim, if true:
https://twitter.com/pbump/status/997534141452238849
Bump’s clickbaity headline, however, obscured actual fatality rates, which he later admitted in this tweet:
The article notes that fatality RATES among servicemembers are still 17 times higher. https://t.co/ohCDo0Yf8o pic.twitter.com/tdV46ta9xS
— Philip Bump (@pbump) May 18, 2018
Bump was later informed that his clickbaity headline was wrong and that the number of deaths in school shootings when compared to servicemembers killed is nowhere near double:
Task & Purpose's @jaredbkeller noted that the DOD reports were incomplete. He pointed me to other data that increased the number of military fatalities.
The total is still outpaced by school shootings. https://t.co/ohCDo0Yf8o pic.twitter.com/1G1Xl8NlAf
— Philip Bump (@pbump) May 18, 2018
This also means that a servicemember is 40X more likely to die when compared to a student, not 17X:
The figures for 2018 do not suggest schools are more dangerous than combat zones. After all, there are more than 50 million students in public elementary and high schools and only about 1.3 million members of the armed forces. So far in 2018, a member of the military has been about 40 times as likely to be killed as someone is to die in a school shooting, including Keller’s revised figures.
Bump also made other errors in the piece:
@pbump FYI the PR Air Nat Guard crash you mention didn’t happen in PR. Happened in Savannah. And it happened in May, not March. https://t.co/t60CwACa6X
— Adam Ragusea (@aragusea) May 18, 2018
The damage, however, was already done as other blue-checks shared Bump’s incorrect headline with commentary like this:
Going to homeroom should not be more dangerous than going to war. I can't believe we're even having a debate about this. #EnoughIsEnough #WA08 https://t.co/W9PZosS5re
— Jason Rittereiser (@JRittereiser) May 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/jd_evermore/status/997540502949023745
it's a war out there… https://t.co/9C6OLYWK6p
— Kevin Diaz (@DiazChron) May 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/997563739057647616
https://twitter.com/lcmoser/status/997567496789151746
This is the article. https://t.co/oG3NlKIW8t
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) May 18, 2018
***
Related:
Blue-check mob drags Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick over school security, but he's 100% right https://t.co/MyTdm5LFQa
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 18, 2018
Wait, there's MORE?! Don't look now, but Ana Navarro just became EXTRA-PROBLEMATIC (Hint: It's 'REAL bad') https://t.co/iM6CMCdWGd
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 18, 2018
Sen. Chris Murphy blames today's school shooting on Congress for failing to pass measures that would not have stopped today's school shooting https://t.co/VeGUV4SgEE
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 18, 2018
Narrative FAIL: Lefties rushing to sound another AR-15 alarm trip HARD over reality https://t.co/JP5fMRvnyS
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 18, 2018
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