This is a critical review on a Yahoo! Canada News report. The purpose is to see how data got distorted and manipulated to become a bias.
I use the same title of the news report as my blog's title today. Here is the link of the report: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100924/health/us_health_gays_aids
"One in five US gays HIV infected" -- How horrible it is! Yet if you dive underneath the texts, you will find a fascinating new story. To join me on this adventure, please try to answer the following questions based on the news report content ONLY:
1. Does "men who have sex with men" mean the men are gay? Can't they be bi-sexual? If you agree that they can be bi-sexual, based on this news report can you ensure that the HIV infectors mentioned here are not infected from hetero-sexual intercourse?
2. How about the geographics of these "one in five gay men living in 21 major US cities"? Based on the report, the study was based on a sampling of 8,000 gay men living in 21 major US cities, but it is unclear whether these 8,000 gay men are averagely scatterring around the 21 cities. Is it possible that the majority of that 19% "men having sex with men" who didn't realize their HIV infection are NYC residents? Which city(s) has(have) most such cases?
3. "It said the prevalence increased as education and income decreased, and awareness of HIV status was higher among gay men with greater education and income". How about a male prostitue who is gay, with lower education but high income (Based on my understanding on "A Call Girl's Secret Diary", the prostitution industry is definitely not a low-income job)?
Now, look back to the news title. Does it still sound horrible to you? You might find more interesting challenges on this simple news article. Be my guest!
If you still have some time to rest a bit, I would like to present you this last question:
What is the truth of a news report?
Cordelia :)
No comments:
Post a Comment