Traditional journalism, for good or ill, is in serious trouble in America. The local newspaper, the Raleigh News and Observer, just laid off several staff members, mainly because of corporate shenanigans of mergers, buyouts, and basic mismanagement. But from the looks of a story in today's N&O, perhaps some other staffers need to be let go for failing basic journalism.
Wednesday's paper features a story headlined "Choking game awareness foundation to host fundraiser". The choking game (which goes by many other names, too) is a form of self-asphyxiation practiced by some teenagers to gain a temporary high. If done incorrectly, it can lead to brain damage and death. As a former teacher and generally aware person, I have heard of the choking game. However, I was surprised to learn that there was a foundation for such things, and that it would have a fundraiser. It was just a weird headline.
So I head inside the article to learn more about it. Kris Marceno was 15 years old, the son of a wealthy Cary family, when he died after playing the choking game. His family created a foundation to his memory and to educate the public about the dangers of this practice. (Note to family: Your website is not as hip as you think it is. It's hard to load and relies too heavily on flash, making it possibly unreadable on some browsers, or so long to load that the viewer loses interest.)
Imagine my shock when the unnamed staff "reporter" wrote the following:
It's estimated as many as 250 to 1,000 teens die in the United States each year playing the choking game, according to the Centers for Disease Control.250 to 1,000 teens die every year? A 9/11 of choking deaths every three to 11 years? How come I haven't heard more about this before?
The reason is because of a failure of basic journalism.
The website cites an unsubstantiated claim that as many as 250 to 1,000 teens die a year from the choking game, but also admits numbers are hard to prove because many of the deaths are recorded as suicides. While this is likely, the numbers still seem too inflated.
Somewhere along the way, the "reporter" attributed this statistic to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the chief recorder of medical statistics for the United States government. However, a quick 30-second visit to the Google provides the CDC's own information on the choking game.
Because no traditional public health dataset collects mortality data on this practice, CDC used news media reports to estimate the incidence of deaths from the choking game. This report describes the results of that analysis, which identified 82 probable choking-game deaths among youths aged 6--19 years, during 1995--2007.The CDC's first attempt at estimating the prevalence of death from the choking game came only in February 2008. And while they admit the limitations of their methodology, their analysis debunks the "fact" that went unchallenged by the "reporter". According to the numbers in the article, it wasn't just 82 deaths in the time period studied, but 3,000 to 12,000 deaths. At an average rate of seven deaths per year, the choking game is as fatal as meningitis or heart attack, and less fatal than deaths due to HIV/AIDS, or appendicitis, or influenza, or kidney disease among those aged 5-14 (2005). (This data is not a direct comparison, but it provides a reasonable frame of reference.)
A few closing comments are in order. First, the "reporter" failed to practice basic journalism by doing independent research and verifying the information fed to him or her by the foundation, which is essentially an interest group. While its motives are good, the foundation benefits if people think the choking game is a larger problem than it really is. The "reporter" enables that by not checking the facts.
Second, the "reporter" failed to practice basic common sense. Stop and think about the numbers for a moment. Wouldn't you have noticed if a thousand, or even 250 teens, had died in a year due to this choking game? Shouldn't you have noticed? And if you didn't, shouldn't you have felt skepticism, the chief tool in a reporter's belt? If there were that many deaths every year, would the choking game really need an awareness foundation? While the loss of just one child to any cause of death is a tragedy for that family, this commentary is not attempting to diminish that loss. It is specifically focused on the journalism involved.
Finally, this is a brief six-paragraph article of local interest in a newspaper whose circulation currently ranks 60th in the country. But it is a big deal, because it is endemic of what is happening to journalism at all levels. And because as this staff writer grows in experience and reputation, he or she will continue to make the same errors, either willfully or not, and will continue to mislead readers. Next time, the story might not be about a rare cause of death among teens. It might be about war, national security, massive threats to public health, or something else far more critical.
UPDATE: I posted a brief comment on the story itself, highlighting the failure to check the facts. By the time I finished this post, the N&O had removed my comment. I have contacted the paper (Dan Barking, Senior Editor - Online) and I am waiting for a reply.
UPDATE 2: I received a quick and reasonable reply from the N&) today - my comment had a URL in it, which their policy prohibits. I am glad to set the record straight - and I hope the N&O will do the same.
8 comments:
Perhaps I am taking this too personally, since my oldest son died from this deadly "game". I read your words, and it disturbs me, as an educator, to what you are actually saying here. Clearly, you have never lost anyone close to you. Families of victims would like to spare even one more person and that can be prevented by educating the public on this deadly practice. You sound like a semi-intelligent person that would be better served to take all the energy that you have invested in this piece and doing something more positive with your time than complaining about the "failure" of basic journalism.
You are taking this too personally, and you have missed the point entirely if you think that this commentary is intended to diminish the tragedy of deaths from this practice. I even wrote:
"While the loss of just one child to any cause of death is a tragedy for that family, this commentary is not attempting to diminish that loss. It is specifically focused on the journalism involved."
It is the foundation's role, and the role of others like you, to publicize the dangers of the choking game. I have no issue with that. Similarly, you should see that this commentary is about journalism - especially when journalists get facts wrong - and not about the nature of the facts themselves.
I tried to carefully disclaim this piece, but I knew at least one reader would misunderstand it.
I don't know if the jounalist made an error or not, I haven't read the article. But it seems you're thinking is that there aren't 250 to 1000 deaths a year from asphyx play and that he misquoted the CDC who have attributed 80 some deaths to this in the past few years. This is true, the CDC did not even acknowledge asphyx play deaths until we, the parents of the dead, ranted and raved about our kids dying and a doctor lost her son and got through to them. Their statistics only include those deaths who made the media, not the vast amount that never get written about or are usually mistakenly labeled suicides. The GASP group and Dylan Blake Foundation have hundreds of victims of this "game" listed and that's not even all of them. For example my 14 yr old son died in Wilkes County, NC. A detective told me that 4 or 5 other kids died like he did in our area in the previous 18 months! I was shocked and appalled, it was not in the news, no one knew about it. They also kept my son's death out of the news. If these same kids were killed at a local intersection within 18 months, the entire county would have been up in arms to prevent more deaths, but no one was told about this deadly game. You do the figures, 6 kids around one county in 18 months, multiply that around the country. The numbers blow you away. Everyone needs to know about the vast amount of kids dying from this and they don't realize yet how great this problem is. The kids who die are generally well adjusted bright kids. Totally unexpected deaths right in their own homes. People need to know the figures are as high as 1000 a year, in my opinion that is only the tip of the iceberg. ~Dianna Brendle
Frank,
The reporter's article itself is factual, your critique of the article is longer than the actual piece quoted here: "A foundation named after a Cary teen who died while playing "the choking game" will host its first fundraising event.The Kris Marceno Foundation will host a family casino night May 1 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Cary Senior Center, 120 Maury O'Dell Place.The foundation, based in Cary, is an organization dedicated to educating teens and adults about the dangers of the choking game.
Marceno was 15 when he died Nov. 2, 2008, while playing the choking game. The game, also known as the fainting game or pass-out game, can involve self-strangulation or strangulation by another person with the hands or a noose to achieve a brief high.Funds raised at the event will go towards educational programs to teach teens and adults about the dangers of the game, according to a news release from the foundation.
For more information about the fundraiser, visit www.krismarcenofoundation.com or call 961-7537."
The information on the site about the fundraiser is also acurate..hope you plan on attending!
Anonymous,
You missed the criticism, then. This is not about the relative worth of the foundation. It is about research, sources, and confirming facts.
Dianna,
I've been going round and round in my head most of the afternoon about how to reply to what you wrote, or if I should reply. Here is my best shot.
First, and clearly foremost, you have my sympathy for your loss. In 1989, I lost two people very close to me to unexpected gun violence, in their own home. While the circumstances are not the same, the feelings of loss, of confusion, of questioning, the constant urgency of "why?", these are things to which I can relate.
You and I are definitely approaching this event from two distinctly different points of view. Without going into too much detail, I have had a long-running concern with the problem of reporters as steongraphers - journalists who basically act as public relations machines for whoever or whatever they are covering, without doing independent research to verify and to question what they are told.
The choice of the choking game as the topic of this commentary was completely random. It could have been any other article I stumbled upon that struck me, but this was the one. And it may not be of any comfort to you, but for anyone else who is reading, I do want to put a fine point on one thing.
As someone who has experienced this tragedy first hand, you feel that it is underreported, that the public needs to know more about what is happening to teenagers. As someone who has not experienced this, I may have come across as too cold and dispassionate in my analysis. I apologize if that disturbed you.
I would have been more satisfied had the reporter done something like this. After getting information from the foundation about deaths due to the choking game, he (or she) should have done some research, checking with the CDC, the purported source of the numbers, for more information. At that point, he would have found the number that I did - 82 deaths from 1995-2007. He also would have read the CDC's own concerns about its methodology, and their belief that these deaths are underreported for a variety of reasons. His reporting could have then highlighted the underreporting as a critical problem in getting the public to take this issue seriously.
I think you and the CDC are both correct - this is a problem that is unnoticed and underreported. Foundations like this one do good work in helping to rectify that. And if that message was lost in my critique of the journalism involved, I apologize.
I truly think it is the author of this article who hasnt done their research, this game kills, and the figures that were quoted, were truly low figures. My son died playing this horrid game...in January of this year. The pain is still fresh, and while the argument seems to be about the accuracy of journalism, the author of this site would be better off, RESEARCHIING the facts and spreading the dangers of the choking game, instead of criticizing someone else's journalism...check out some other sites for information, www.chokinggame.net GASP....there are tons of sites with information out there..."research it"
Our son, Jack, died, in 2006. Not reported in the paper until a year later when finally one of his friends started admitting to knowing he was going to play the game. His death certificate was changed from suicide to undetermined...one of the other friend's parents would not let him be interviewed to tell what he knew about Jack's participation in this activity. So our son is one of the MANY that won't be report, therefore, wont be counted as accidental-the choking game. That is where it stands now. It is a secret amongst the kids. This needs get out in the open so it can be recognized as what it is...a deadly activity that is killing our children and education is our vaccine. We vaccinate against other things that kill....but until this is named, labeled, each child counted....it continues to be a "secret". It makes me sad, more sad than I already am.
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