Posted by walter on July 5, 2009, 14:29:13, in reply to "Re: less credibility "
ALP/Bob.
This typical piece of invention of yours (http://dissident93.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/medialens-dittoheads/) is clearly designed as a continuation of your anti-ML smear campaign. It is a smear, because of the art and effort you put into producing impressions that are misleading. This piece is a case in point.
Reproduced below - my replies in square brackets [].
Walter
Medialens dittoheads on IBC
Medialens once labelled IBC as an "Iraq Western Media Body Count". But after a long list of IBC's non-western media sources was posted to the Medialens message board, the Medialens editors tried a different approach instead: "And what percentage of reports in the IBC database originate from those sources you list?" (ML message board, 4/6/2006)
Fast-forward 3 years. Two of Medialens's anon-supporters, Walter and Gunnar, are still repeating this line (even though Medialens seem, sensibly, to have dropped it). For example, Walter complains that IBC "emphasize" their "90" sources rather than the subset of "20" which pick up most incident/death reports. The problems with Walter's account are that:
1. IBC don't list "90" sources, they list nearly 200.
[Yes the number given in the thread was 193. My mistake, and glad you found it worthy of such celebration. It"s about the only substance there is to your piece.]
2. IBC don't "emphasize" the full list above any particular subset. (They simply provide a full list and analyses of percentage coverage of subsets).
[But you already know what I meant here, because I told you "I was referring to the IBC description of their sources as comprehensive - by which they presumably mean the 90 sources.". http://members.boardhost.com/DT3rd/msg/1246657033.html.
A loose description on my part, sure (pour yourself another half a glass), but no-one was misled, except your blog readers.]
3. The fact that a given subset of 20 (or 10, 12, 30, 5 ¨C pick a number) media sources picks up a proportionately large number of incidents/deaths has little to do with IBC, whose database simply reflects this real-world fact.
Walter refers to the 90/20 thing about a dozen times, apparently without realising that it's his own construct
[But again, you know that by this I meant the description of sources as "comprehensive", so it's not in fact my own construct, as you well know. Another non-existent "point"]
, with about as much bearing on IBC as the Daily Mail on immigration
[But the disputed term "comprehensive" - which you knew I meant - was the subject of the discussion, so it does have a bearing. What a fast helicopter you have.]
(he's possibly confusing Gunnar's IBC example, "90% of citations from 21 sources"). Of course, it's not a question of IBC's "usual" (or "typical") "20 sources" (as Walter incorrectly puts it), but of an unequal distribution of media coverage in the real world, which means that there will be a "top 20" (or 10 or 5 or whatever) sources in terms of proportional coverage of incidents/deaths. For example, Al Sharqiyah TV is in IBC's top 10 sources much of the time, because it picks up a large percentage of total incidents/deaths relative to other sources. It's not a case of IBC being "usually" (or "typically") "restricted" to using Al Sharqiyah as a source in preference to others which pick up less incidents.
Walter claims that "IBC give a misleading account of their comprehensive range of sources". I asked him to point me to this alleged "misleading account", but he hasn't responded to this request
[You need to stop cutting and pasting part-sentences. This description referred to the previous sentence:
"Just to expand on the credibility issue, even someone with no prior anti-IBC agenda ought to be able to see that most people would find 90 sources more impressive than 20 sources. Therefore if discussing credibility (a subjective entity), surely it is reasonable to point out that IBC give a misleading account of their comprehensive range of sources - whether or not it is the case that the typical 20 are just as good".
Your origami makes it sound like a "new claim" - even though you know it isn't. ].
He also writes: "Given the 20 sources issue, IBC's "comprehensive" seems an exaggeration".
[An exaggeration is misleading, yes? So you did know what I meant above, then. Why ask me to point it out?]
This shows remarkable confusion on Walter"s part. IBC's compilation of corroborated reported deaths is "comprehensive" to the extent that it misses none - not to the extent that it contains an artificial, unrepresentative (and impossible) flat distribution of all sources.
[IBC say "Deaths in the database are derived from a comprehensive survey of commercial media and NGO-based reports". So the MEDIA SURVEY is claimed to be comprehensive. No "remarkable confusion" in fact, so hard luck.]
In the absence of any evidence (over a period of more than six years) that IBC is missing a significant number of reported deaths, it would be pointlessly silly to attack the claim that it's a "comprehensive" database of reported deaths
[Well if for example, around 70% of deaths go unreported in IBC-monitored media, (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/18935953), why is it silly to expect that some of these deaths would be covered in local Arabic-only media? The real issue is whether the proportion is substantial. That's OK - at least you are expressing an opinion, rather than your usual conjuring tricks.]
Gunnar frames his criticisms of IBC in the same confused way as Walter, but to make matters worse he adds the following ignorant fallacy: "IBC gives a long list of media the[y] apparently cover, when it comes down to it they actually only quote a few different sources in their database".
I asked Gunnar to go away and count the number of sources cited in IBC's database. He hasn't replied yet. Perhaps he's found more than "a few"? (Hint: IBC's long list is titled "Sources used by Iraq Body Count" [my emphasis], every source listed is assigned an abbreviation for database citation, and they all seem to make an appearance in the form of db citations). I've attempted to patiently explain some of this stuff to Gunnar on previous occasions, but it doesn¡¯t seem to register, so I end up repeating myself every few years.
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