CNN’s Oliver Darcy, writing in last night’s Reliable Sources newsletter, called out news outlets for continuing to miss “the obvious framing” on stories by reporting total numbers — in this case, the number of people fired over refusing the vaccine in Washington state — without any context on if this is *really* a lot of people or not. In this case, Darcy wants us to know that’s just 3% of the Washington state workforce that’s been fired and *that’s* important:
White House spokesperson Ben Wakana called out USA Today over a headline that read: “As of today, 1,887 Washington state employees were terminated or left their positions after Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate went into effect.” Wakana pointed out, “It’s off a base of 63,300 employees! So less than 3% of people quit…IN AN ENTIRE STATE. The headline ‘Overwhelming majority of employees comply’ was right there!” Wakana is right, and it is bizarre that at this juncture some major news outlets are still missing the obvious framing on these stories…
Well, for starters, good luck getting journos to understand what a denominator is and how it works:
. @oliverdarcy wants journos to understand how denominators work. good luck with that. pic.twitter.com/fpQh1YHuY8
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) October 21, 2021
But, more importantly, why doesn’t Darcy criticize CNN over this headline on the “hundreds of Netflix employees and supporters” who were expected to protest the company’s response to Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special?
is this an accurate headline, @oliverdarcy? Why not put the percentage of total employees who walked out? https://t.co/sWA8XJcr70
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) October 21, 2021
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The reality? “Dozens” showed up:
Dozens of Netflix employees walked out of a Los Angeles office building on Wednesday, protesting Dave Chappelle's recent stand-up special. They carried signs that read "Team Trans" and "Transphobia Is Not a Joke." https://t.co/5YTYK93dGl
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 20, 2021
Netflix has over 12,000 employees. Why isn’t CNN framing this as the percent of Netflix employees who protested because “dozens” divided by 12,000 is a very, very small number:
The Netflix walkout over Chappelle was reportedly going to be 1,000 employees. It appears that a fraction of these numbers materialized. This whole thing seems like the news media trying really hard to will something into reality when reality won't comply…
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) October 20, 2021
And this is a great question. Is there any evidence of a real backlash?
What evidence is there that there's any real backlash against Netflix at all? I'm sure if you polled Apple Pie you could find a few dozen people who find it to be problematic. https://t.co/PzbfYWRlSd
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) October 20, 2021
Or is it just a bunch of major news outlets, like Oliver Darcy originally called out, framing the narrative badly?
I'd be curious what would happen if @YouGov or @MorningConsult polled Americans about Chappelle and then polled people who work at political nonprofits and media outlets with the same questions.
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) October 21, 2021
We know the answer.
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