July 28, 2007

NY Times Can't Count

But what the heck -- they only misreported the number of refused shipments by 634%. And they expect us to believe any other piece of news they report?

The Food and Drug Administration refused entry to 82 candy shipments from Denmark in the last year, not 520, as The Times reported in an article in Business Day on July 12.

The article, which described the F.D.A.Â’s rejection of shipments to the United States of food and other products for violations of sanitary, safety or labeling standards, detailed problems with shipments from India, Mexico, Denmark and the Dominican Republic. It was based on an analysis by The Times of inspection records in an online F.D.A. database.

Because of flaws in its analysis method, The Times miscalculated the number of shipments refused from those countries from July 2006 through June of this year.

In doing the analysis, The Times incorrectly tallied the number of violations cited by the F.D.A., and reported that figure as the number of refused shipments. Because more than one violation may be involved in each refused shipment, that approach resulted in an overcount, exaggerating the export problems.

Sloppy research, sloppy reporting, sloppy editing -- that's the New York Times!

Posted by: Greg at 03:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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