Outrage Growing Over NYT Story On Killer Veterans

January 17th, 2008 Posted By Bash.

you lookin' at me?
As much as the lefty-libs wish it were so, the facts say that Veterans are actually 6 times, six times, yes, SIX TIMES less likely to commit murder than someone who never entered the military.

The story that the New York Times ran about the number of murders committed by Iraq & Afghanistan War Veterans was not only irresponsible (to say the least) journalism…but it actually outright said the opposite of what the true facts are.

We ran a story and then a video on this yesterday, but there’s more.

This from a Newsbusters article by Clay Waters:

The blogosphere continues to boil with outrage over the Times’s front-page story from Sunday on veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and committing murders, a story immediately discredited by cursory research as journalistically and statistically worthless. The paper’s main finding, that 121 veterans either committed a killing in this country or are charged with one, was useless without context, which the Times either couldn’t or didn’t provide.

The story failed basic journalism, with the Times making no attempt to compare murder rates of veterans to that of the general population. Can one imagine the Times spouting out a raw number of murders committed by, say, illegal immigrants? Without context, the Times’ big finding was useless, a single data point floating in space.

(…)

“Is the number of killings by combat vets dramatically higher than the rate involving people of the same age who’ve never served in the military?

“It’s a good question — in fact, it’s the key question. But the Times never asked it. Or, if it did, it never reported the answer.

“Perhaps for good reason — because the statistics tell a far different tale than that appearing in the Times.”

Indeed, those who’ve run the numbers on various sets of crime statistics finds that one is significantly safer around veterans than around non-veterans of similar age. The New York Post’s military correspondent Ralph Peters did some crunching:

“…to match the homicide rate of their [nonmilitary] peers, our troops would’ve had to come home and commit about 150 murders a year, for a total of 700 to 750 murders between 2003 and the end of 2007″ — six times the number the Times cited.”

Nods to drillanwr


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4 Responses

  1. John Cunningham

    Maybe this was another soros funded fact finding report. After the ny slimes folds he’ll buy the paper.

  2. drillanwr

    The Ralph Peters’ complete piece is well worth the click and read:

    SMEARING SOLDIERS
    THE GRAY LADY’S KILLER-GI LIE

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/01152008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/smearing_soldiers_265875.htm?page=0

  3. dad3-7

    DOES DAN RATHER WORK FOR THE SLIMES.. OR DO THEY JUST GO TO HIS JOURNALISM CLASSES???

  4. Lamplighter

    Not to mention, not all killings are “murders.” For instance, the first example in the NYT article, a vet killed a gang member who pulled a gun on him. That’s not murder, that’s self-defense. OK, so the vet was carrying an AK-47, probably without a permit. Nevertheless, that’s still not murder…

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