Mary Rosh on Jayson Blair

John Lott -- yes that John Lott -- has thrown in his two cents on L?affaire Blair:

The New York Times has suffered a major black eye with revelations that one of its reporters made up events, facts, or engaged in plagiarizism [sic] some 50 times. [?]

Unfortunately, this pattern of reporting goes much deeper than the Times admits.

To which the Washington Post?s Al Kamen cracks:

Making up events and facts is clearly a no-no for a reporter. Lott's greatest fan and defender online, Mary Rosh, would certainly agree.

Lottologists will also be pleased to note that the gun scholar seems to have a new blog.

Comments

[Sebastian]

The problem in Iraq is not guns, it's a complete breakdown in the rule of law. Take away the guns, and you're still going to have lawlessness in Iraq as long as no one is really keeping order.

[Anonymous]

sebastian, you miss the point. they will have same problems as everywhere else -- the only ones who will comply will be the law-abiding types. The Iraqi criminals will not comply and will then be even more dangerous

[Croesus]

This all basically proves that guns don't save or kill people; people do, and individual decisions and cultural bakgrounds determine the use of guns, and that this is the case with all other forms of technology. In other words, the pro or anti gun fetish folks are selling a form of technological determinism that when looked at closely, doesn't make much sense.

[Anonymous]

That and making up survey data. 🙂

[cinco de mayo]

but Jayson Blair wasn't dishonest under a pen-name, he was dishonest as Jayson Blair. I have yet to see anything published by Lott to be proved dishonest, all that was proved was Mary Rosh is really the same person as Lott -- so "she" shouldn't be trusted as an unbiased source.

Al Kamen should be able to tell the difference. If not, I wonder about HIS reporting!

[cinco de mayo]

and yes I know that SOME of Lott's survey data is under suspecion, but that is way different than Blair, who has admitted dozens of blatent lies - published in the front page of a paper of record. Sloppy scholorship is entirely different than making shit up.

[Croesus]

I'd say creating an alternate personality, and making up a biography about such, w/o revealing that this is what you are doing, is untruthful. Besides, this isn't like Boccacio creating fictional characters in his life for literary effect; the man's purpose was to deceive in order to pump up his booksales and defend its thesis.

[Anonymous]

I want to send John Lott & Mary Rosh on a "data collection" tour of Baghdad, where everybody owns an AK-47 and the crime rate is falling through the floor!

[joe]

Lott made shit up, Cinqo. Doing so in an academic paper is arguably worse than doing so in a newspaper article.

[Anonymous]

congrats. you have proved Lott is a hypocrite. let us all pile up his books and burn them, as none of us have ever acted hypocritical.

[Anonymous]

yes disarming the non-criminal Iraqis will result in criminals owning all the guns and more crime.

somehow this proves gun control is a viable idea, we should just let the gun-grabbers treat us like conquered Iraqis. Disarmed USA is conquered USA -- careful gun-grabbers, you show too much of your agenda with these comments!

[SDL]

I must have been on some other planet for a while because I missed all of this. Does anyone have any other links handy so I can do some reading?

Thanks.

[SDL]

Sorry, I'm a bit brain dead this morning. The links I'm interested in are the Lott data controversy.

[Anonymous]

Damn, I revealed my gun-grabber agenda again! Doh!

So, Mr. 100% American, please name me one country on Earth that has completely unfettered gun ownership and is NOT a chaotic hellhole.

[Keith]

I don't have the effort to determine if this is the case right now, but if Lott has fallen on his sword for the cloud hanging over him, he's got standing to call the kettle black. Or the Grey Lady grey. Or whatever. If he maintains that his research is golden, then he's got brass balls for throwing stones from within his own glass house.

Cinco - is it your assertion that "the paper of record" marketing tagline of the NYT is to be taken at face value, that the paper is essentially the academic journal of the world? I'll grant that a lie promulgated in the NYT will reach far more eyeballs than a lie promulgated in any given academic journal, so the number of minds touched is large. However, slop in an academic journal can be used as an underpinning for further research, serve as basis for change in government policy, and grant the researcher a level of influence and expert standing to which he is frankly not entitled. So the depth of impact can be greater, even if merely sloppy and not blatantly untrue.

[jim]

Lott is a deceitful, dishonest criminal. Defending or apologizing for him just because you agree with his agenda makes you just as bad. (I am a disabled veteran gun owner).

[Croesus]

jim,

Where do you get the idea that he's a criminal? Was he arrested on a felonious fabrication of evidence charge? 🙂

[Croesus]

Slate's "Whopper of the Week":

http://slate.msn.com/id/2083532/

"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."

-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations subcommittee on defense, May 14

"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

-Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16

[Tim Lambert]

SDL: You can find the details on the Lott survey controversy, the Lott-Rosh controversy, the Lott/Levitt controversy and the Lott coding errors controversy on my Lott controversy blog.

Lott's blog entries will also make more sense if you look at my blog. He is responding to my posts without being willing to link to them or mention their existence.

[joe]

I told you people that assault rifles were weapons of mass destruction, but did anyone listen?

😉

[joe]

...and now Bush agrees with me, and HE'S got the NRA working from the Oval Office.

[Croesus]

Tim Lambert,

When you brandish a weapon, you better use the damn thing. At least pop the perp in the knee-caps. 🙂

[HH]

Well no, I think the audience should be taken into account and because of that at the very least, I'd say it's a tie.

[Anonymous]

except pro-gun types are not trying to surpress the technogoly

[HH]

"Doing so in an academic paper is arguably worse than doing so in a newspaper article."

Wha?? Isn't it, um, basically the same? To argue that lying to the academic world is worse than lying to Joe Six-pack is a little thing called elitism.

[HH]

By the way, where are the posts of the latest "Bushism" from Slate while we're completely off topic? Also I can't follow the argument between the people who haven't posted a name of any kind.

[joe]

HH,

Academic work is supposed to carry an air of authority and responsibility that newspapers and the nitely newz do not. That's why it's worse - nothing to do with the audience at all.

[Tim Lambert]

Oh, and if you look at the NY Times article that Lott is criticising (April 9, 2000) you will discover that he is misrepresenting the article in a major way. Lott claims that "The Times claimed that from 1977 to 1994 there was an annual average of only 2.6 attacks where at least one person was killed in a public multiple victim attack (not including robberies or political killings). Yet, what we found was an average of 17 per year."

But what the Times actually said was: "Their number remained fairly consistent from 1976 to 1989, averaging about 23 a year, only once going above 30. But between 1990 and 1997, the last year for which data was available, the number averaged over 34, dipping below 30 only once, in 1994."

The NY Times looked at two different data sets. The one they used for trends as in the quote above was based on FBI data on all homicides. The other contained 100 cases where they gathered detailed information was obtained from media reports, and did not contain all such cases. The cases that were in it were skewed towards the more recent ones. Lott sneakily pretended that they used the second data set to analyse trends (which would have been invalid).

This is not an obscure point. It is blindingly obvious if you read the NY Times article.

[Sahar Christopher]

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DATE: 01/25/2004 04:28:48
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thanks