The Fulham v Arsenal press conference – what was said and what was reported. (Guess what, they are not the same thing).
By: Anne
The basic media line on Arsene’s post-Fulham comments regarding referee Lee Probert is best summed up by the Guardian’s David Hytner, when he opened his article on the post-match press conference by claiming that:
“Arsène Wenger voiced dark conspiracy theories in a bitter tirade at the referee Lee Probert after watching his 10-man Arsenal side stunned at the very last by Fulham…”
Fair enough, David. But how’s this for a “dark conspiracy theory?”:
The truth is that the journalists at post-Fulham press conference knew perfectly well that Lee Probert’s performance was appalling in the match. However, rather than report on this shocking performance by Probert, they instead attempted to bait Arsène into making comments about the ref, which they could subsequently use to report that Arsène was harbouring “conspiracy theories.”
What is my evidence to support this “conspiracy theory?” How about the simple fact that, during the post-match press conference, every single question asked was about a refereeing decision? Having watched a lot of post-match press conferences, I can say that it is highly unusual, in my experience, for a press conference to be as one-note as this one was, in terms of the topics under discussion.
Basically, it appears to me that, while Arsène did set out to deliberately highlight the Djourou sending off and the not-given Gervinho penalty as questionable decisions, the journalists present, on their own initiative, chose to bang on about these topics for the entire press conference in an apparent attempt to get Arsène to go even further in his criticism of Probert.
This is despite the fact that Arsène appeared to try to change the subject, actually attempted to leave at one point, and, at the very least, offered plenty of opportunities for the journalists to move on to other topics.
The entire press conference is transcribed in full at the end of this article, so that you can all decide for yourselves whether or not you agree with me about the journalists “baiting” Arsène to make comments about the ref. However, if I am correct that this was the case, would it not suggest foreknowledge amongst those same journalists that Probert’s performance was, in fact, even more appalling than Arsène had acknowledged initially? To me it would.
However, if you don’t like that one, how about this “dark conspiracy theory?”:
Despite their persistent attempts to accuse Arsène of (to quote the Mirror) “whinging about referees,” in truth, at least some journalists know perfectly well that referees systematically target Arsenal with certain bad decisions. However, rather than report on this, they appear to prefer, for some reason, to portray others who have noticed this same fact as “paranoid.”
My evidence to support the above “conspiracy theory” is as follows: Were it not the case, why would a journalist have asked the following question during the post-Fulham press conference:
“Q: Arsene, Etihad, Villa Park, here today, and also the Emirates, so many cases have gone against the players when there’s been all these penalties. What do you have to do to win a penalty?”
Is it just me, or does that sound like a “conspiracy theory?” Or at least, a “conspiracy theory” according to current media norms for defining the term? Please do let me know if you find even a single article covering the Fulham match which also happens to mention this systematic denial of penalties against Arsenal as something newsworthy…
Finally, if you’re still not convinced by the above, let’s see if you can get around this one (my “darkest conspiracy theory” of all):
For some reason, nearly every major newspaper in England appears to have published the same fabricated quote from Arsène Wenger to bolster these “ref attack” stories, which subtly influences how Arsène’s comments would likely be interpreted. That is, unless I’m going temporarily deaf during the same portion of the post-match press conference over and over again.
And to make matters worse, it seems that any journalist who actually attended or watched the press conference would simply have to be aware that, during the conference, Arsène did not say the following:
In the Guardian article linked above, David Hytner reported that Arsène said: “the game was all [about] looking for the second yellow card for Djourou. The referee was naive enough to give it.”
According to Laura Williamson at the Daily Mail, Arsène said: “The moment (Djourou got) the first yellow card they tried every time to get him the second and the referee was naïve enough to give it.”
This same direct quote was published by Neil McLeman in the Mirror, and also by the the BBC, in an article with the subheading “Wenger unhappy with ‘naive’ referee.”
As my final example (although more papers published this “naive” quote), Antony Kastrinakis reported in the Sun that Arsene said: “”The moment you get the first yellow they tried every time to get the second and the ref was naive enough to give it.”
Now, one thing that you should notice about the above “quotes” is that there seems to be a certain amount of disagreement over how Arsène actually phrased this “naive” comment. And if I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the likely reason for this discrepancy is somehow linked to the fact that (based on the video of the post-match press conference that appears on Arsenal Player), Arsène never actually said anything at all about the referee being “naive.”
Specifically, I have watched the post-match press conference four times in a row, and while I have found portions of the above quotes, I cannot make out the word “naive” anywhere. If anyone else can, please let me know, so that I can offer a full and public apology to the above journalists.
However, at the current moment, all I hear Arsène saying is the following:
“When Djourou got the first half [yellow], every time they went down to get him a second yellow, and he did nothing at all… I saw it coming, you know, because the game when Frei came on was all about look for the second yellow card against Djourou, and in the end he got it.”
So, assuming for the moment that my ears are working properly, let’s take a moment to analyze this probable fabrication.
Specifically, why would multiple journalists (hypothetically) go out of their way to falsely report that Arsène called the referee “naive?” While it is likely that some such reports could be attributed to nothing more than careless error, the probable fabrication must have orignated somewhere. But for what reason?
To analyze this question, let’s use the Mirror as an example, and take a look at how they reported on Arsene’s comments generally:
According to Neil McLeman in the Mirror article linked above:
“Arsène Wenger launched a scathing attack on Lee Probert after seeing Arsenal fall apart at Craven Cottage.
The Gunners boss claimed the referee missed a certain penalty for his side, and then fell for Fulham’s plan to get Johan Djourou sent off, as Arsenal conceded twice in the last six minutes.”
So, according to McLeman, Probert’s alleged “crime” that Arsène accused him of was that he “fell for Fulham’s plan to get Johan Djourou sent off.” In other words, Fulham is cast in the “bad guy” role, while Probert is cast as the “victim,” guilty only of being naively goaded into wrongdoing by Fulham. The Mirror followed this same trend in a subsequent article (also by McLeman) headlined “Riise hits back at Wenger claims over Djourou red card, “ which published a denial by Riise that there had been any Fulham “plot” to get Djourou sent off.
However, I can’t help but notice that, in this “evil Fulham/naive Probert” storyline, any insinuation that Probert himself may have had ill intent in the Djourou sending off is subtly eliminated from Wenger’s post-match comments…
Could this be the reason for the apparent fabrication? Your guess is as good as mine…
The following is the full transcript of Arsène’s post-Fulham press conference. I’m curious to see whether readers agree with my own conclusion that the journalists were “baiting” Arsene to make comments about the ref:
Q: It was difficult after the sending off of Djourou [inaudible]?
Arsène: The referee influenced the game in completely the wrong way in my opinion, and…but we cannot influence that. We had a good first half, in the second half we were more tired, and in the last minutes we lost the game because we were down to 10 men. And the first yellow card was not a yellow card, the second yellow card was a foul for us, it was 100% penalty for us in the first half, and that plus the fact that we didn’t take our chances in the first half made the difference.
Q: When you say “foul for us,” do you think there was a foul on Mertesacker, for the second?
[Please note that the above journalist had already singled out the not-given foul on Mertesacker as a questionable call without Arsene saying a word.]
Arsène: Yeah, of course. When Djourou got the first half [yellow], every time they went down to get him a second yellow, and he did nothing at all.
Q: How do you explain the first one, Arsène? You didn’t think it was a bad enough foul? Or the first booking was not a foul, or not a bad foul?
Arsène: I saw it coming, you know, because the game when Frei came on was all about look for the second yellow card against Djourou, and in the end he got it.
Q: But what about the first one?
Arsène: It was not a yellow card.
Q: But it was a foul, but it wasn’t a bad one. [Inaudible] make sense?
Arsène: I don’t know. I think it was 100% penalty on Gervinho from Senderos in the first half, and the referee had a massive influence on the game like that. You know that in the second half, we played many games recently, that if we drop below 11 we will be in trouble. But we would not have been in trouble would we have stayed with 11 on the pitch.
[Brief silence with no questions. This is unusual only 2 minutes into a press conference. It’s like they’re waiting for Arsène to say something else. Note that when questioning resumes, it’s about the ref again].
Arsène: Ok, thank you. [Gets up to leave].
Q: Arsène, Arsène, I was going to say… Seeing the super slow-mo of the penalty, it looks like it was a clear penalty. Gervinho was brought down.
Arsène [sitting back down]: Yeah. What can I do?
Q: Uh…So, were you surprised if the referee doesn’t give a penalty [inaudible] then a card for diving?
Arsène: I don’t know. I’m surpri- you want the right decision, you know, in a game of that importance for us today… But I do not want to speak more about that. We had the chances to kill the game off before, and we didn’t do it. In the end, I think it’s very unlucky to lose a game with 10 men. When you see the game today, that we finish with 10 men, it’s very difficult to take, you know, and that made a massive difference, when you have played 48 hours before, and you finish with 10 men, it’s too difficult…
Q: Isn’t it the case, Arsène, that the defense now is sadly coming to exhibit problems [inaudible] is well known, but Djourou, the way he’s been performing has been admirable, but is it just the case that it was going to happen eventually, a sending off, or a situation like this?
Arsène: If he deserves to be sent off, he is sent off. I don’t know wha- if the decision is right. I don’t know why it has to happen if he is not to be sent off. I think he has done well, we are short, we have lost three left backs and two right backs. What can you do? You cannot buy 10 fullbacks to make sure that you have a fullback in case of injury.
Q: There was close to an allegation made, Arsène, that a team is setting out to get players sent off. [Inaudible] something [inaudible] said?
Arsène: We do not need to make stories for the newspapers. I tell you the game I have seen. I don’t care about the rest, you know. I just felt that every time Djourou was on the fringe to get a second yellow. You can watch the game again.
Q: Nevertheless, Arsène, to go from 15th to now 5th in twelve to thirteen games is still some achievement.
Arsène: Yes, but there was too much at stake in the game today. We needed absolutely everything to go for us and to be right. We are guilty because we still gave two goals away, I felt in a stupid way, and we didn’t take our chances. But as well, you must say that, as literal as you can be, nothing went for us from the referee today. Nothing at all. And we cannot change that, and we have to live with it, unfortunately.
Q: You seemed to be marching towards the ref at the end, and perhaps thought better of it. Was that the case?
Arsène: No. Because you know what you get.
Q: Arsène, Etihad, Villa Park, here today, and also the Emirates, so many cases have gone against the players when there’s been all these penalties. What do you have to do to win a penalty?
Arsène: We had a penalty in the last game against…clear hand ball, we had a penalty at Man City, we had a penalty at Villa Park. We don’t get it. You should not ask me. I don’t know.
Thank you. [Arsène leaves].
——————————-
The Fulham Arsenal story in full
London people are unfit to referee according to the referees’ association
What did Mr Wenger mean when he said “We know what to expect in London”?
Corruption in the Premier League: Poor-Bert – the next head of PGMO
Incompetent or bent? Certainly one or the other. Fulham v Arsenal – the ref review
As one who has spent a little time as a journalist in the dim and distant past, perhaps I could throw a little light on how journalists work.
It is not uncommon for journalists to liaise with each other over a point of detail to ensure that everyone gets the same story. In a simple example, in the days before universal televising of games, if a goal were scored and it was not clear who scored it the journalists would look at each other and agree who scored it.
In this way every paper comes out with the same thing and no one looks odd by stepping out of line (even though the person stepping out of line might be right and the rest wrong).
This is a key point – unless you are breaking a story which no one else has then you simply must toe the line – otherwise it is felt that the readers will simply think that your paper has got it wrong.
A simple example in the UK concerns the case of Madeleine McCann in May 2007 and Shannon Matthews in 2008. Some of the facts were readily established – but in both cases the interpretation of the facts was unified among the press to such a degree that all debate was lost. (Sorry non-UK readers – it would take too long to describe these cases, but both involved missing children and both got major coverage).
I would suspect that in the press conference one journalist wrote on his laptop a key word, showed it to the next guy and it spread – this was the way we would run the story. Everyone writes their own story then – but with this unified interpretation – including as you saw here, things that were never said.
This reminds me of the quotes that appeared in the press with the American girl being released for a murder crime in Italy and where a paper reported that the first verdict had been confirmed. But in reality it had been reversed. Now that was a terrible mistake in it but the worst part was that they even quoted the prosecutor and quoted him as saying how “happy he was with the verdict in appeal. And publishing things he had said.
Words he hadn’t said of course but well somehow the press invented the words…
Good article once again Anne. Another fine example of how a lot of whore-nalists are simply a bunch of idiots. Thanks for exposing them as those idiots.
Idiots…. if they have a malice reason behind it (bringing Wenger in trouble) it is not the right word in fact….
The thing that worries me most is that “journalists” do this across the board for current and global affairs. No one has reported the impending SOPA bill being passed in America, effectively beggining the censorship of the internet worldwide. No one is reporting the sanctions imposed on Iran as a pre-cursor to war, only that they have “WMDs” (where have we heard that before?)
Of late I have become sick of a lot of Arsenal fans who take these tabloids as gospel. I constantly hear “get him out, he doesn’t know what he’s doing” generally it is easy to classify these fans as uneducated and get their information about the world (and sport) from one or two corroborating sources. Reason does not beat propaganda it seems. Who knows, maybe this whole campaign is an experiment to measure how much our Mainstream media can effect people towards certain organisations or people. When you consider how great Arsenal is in their history, development of young players, finding players across the globe who have lit up the premier league, a self sustaining model.
We live in such a short term culture (I call it Cultural ADHD), people do not value sentiment, only whats new, so instead of praising us for what we have acheived, and how Wenger has changed the face of the EPL, people will be revelling in the Decline (Oh look at all the nice shiny toys they have in Manchester this year….etc etc )
Maybe he should stop talking to them, in as much as he can and just release things on the official site. Wont make him popular but not as he gets any favours from them anyway. He could become the antiarry…as far as the media are concerned.
But I really hoping they are trying to do something about the refs behind the scenes, and hope they are being joined by a few other clubs, Wolves for one.
Anne, this is great work. Whilst we all know that the media tend to create stories and quotes, we do need evidence that supports ‘our’ case. Here we can clearly see that the media know we’ve been on the rough end of referee decisions in a number of games – regardless of why. We can also see from the resultant stories and these questions that they have a narrative they wish to run, and are just fishing for quotes to support it.
Hey, anyone watching Chris Foy with what he knows better???? How much do you think he was paid!!
Anne what do you say.
Anne, this is yet another excellent piece of work.
I note the FA decided not to take action against Wenger following his comments about Probert. They obviously felt that there was insufficient evidence to support an action against him. But, were the journalists trying to trick Wenger into saying too much? Possible?
While Probert’s performance was totally despicable, the FA would not let that fact alone stop them from trying to disclipine Wenger if they felt they had sufficient grounds.
@kampala gonner decided to stop watching that fix…absolute shocking refereeing….foy has made fergie proud today
@mahdain not as yet city 2 manure 3 some minutes to ho but all the same he wont allow anymore freekicks or foul to go against manure.
@Geezer
Great comment
chris foy put in a performance fergie will be proud of..watch out howard somebody is after your place in the united lineup
Agree Bjt, if the FA could get Wenger, they would.
This has been happening for years, worth remembering that only GG was done for taking bungs. Not condoning the practice but we all know they were all at it, apparently one legend was left alone due to health problems!
Can only echo the comments about Foyboys performance today. I was interested to see who the ref would side with today- (heaven forbid, we could actually have a fair ref) the two teams the refs have been assisting for some time. Seems Utd still flavour of the month.
I expect the cyclist Chris Hoy will be hearing from some very disgruntled City fans
Didn’t see the whole game but the Kompany red card on first viewing looked about right. Got the ball..two feet off the floor…ankle breaker. Yes didn’t hit anyone but potentially an ankle breaker coz the studs showed. Can someone point out if my interpretation is wrong? Unless you guys looked at the whole game and say “Chris Hoy” (Haha) sucked, in which case that may be true.
It’s going to be villa at home in 4th round.(we are yet to play the third round but that’s ok) and manure visit anfield.
There was one player worse than Hoy :It was $na$ri$.
He was never seen in the first half and gave away very cheap possession during the second.
I totally agree that the media are anti Arsenal and very anti AW.However i do think he should know when not to feed them ANYTHING.Regarding the first yellow i do think it was justified.Any tackle from behind you are risking it.Give them NOTHING, talk about the match, not referees.
Anne,
The amazing thing about this media negativity is that it has really gained ground outside the shores of the UK, certainly in my country Nigeria. They report falsehoods about our players, their wages, how we’re never gonna win a trophy in a lightyear, and Nigeria is Arsenal country, but that does not deter them.
There’s one of’em on a popular radio show, anytime he’s asked to analyse an upcoming Arsenal match, he always ends up with ‘i’ll have to give this against Arsenal’. Worst of all, he supports Nottingham Forrest. For crying out loud!
@9jagunnerdoc we have lots too down town Mujini Kampala,they just pretend and in really they are manures. @Arun where have you got that!!Phew so who have been given to us??One of the new guys or?
@ Kampala, I watched the draw live on the fa website
Crikey, after watching the petrol heads get cheated out of the cup, just listened to a BBC journalist attempt to get from mancini a rash statement about the ref’s performance, with no joy. interestingly the journalist goes on in his article to describe the decision as “contentious”,(wonder why, as no one thinks the ref was right on this!) and also says that the defender got the ball without explaining why a ref might give a card if you got the ball anyway or why in this particular case the ref spoilt the game as a contest by sending off a player completely against the rules of the game.
Still you need your press pass to gain access to matchday hospitality at old trafford, and being personaenon grata at sir alex’s table for so long, no one would like to throw that away sticking up for johnny come lately petrol sniffers, do they?
Good article Anne…
The fact is that the newspapers are to some extent dying…I’d even go so far as to say they are totally dying…
When an animal gets caught in a snare it tends to wriggle and get deeper in trouble…
In the present climate the papers need to establish their brand…and develop their quality…once they do that then can build up a loyal readership who use their APP etc..and then they have to work out their new monetization strategy for the 21st Century
Sadly none of the papers is establishing a brand…the mere fact that they all recite the same recycled falsehood makes them indistinguishable from one another…simple as that. They are all employing desperate tactics as the readership plummets…mainly by being even more inflammatory than they ever were before
Because all the newspapers are so indistinguishable, (their news is all syndicated by Reuters I think), I briefly turned to the Daily Mail, because for a while they weren’t viciously anti-Arsenal, and because they have a nice format…but they’ve turned into a lad’s mag now, it’s pretty unreadable…lol…some would say that’s a step up for them
The bottom line is that the newspapers are desperately scraping the barrel….
These days revolutions play out on Twitter.
….alas poor hack I knew him well….
Being the nice guy i am, i have made an offer to my friends who are Man City fans, if they feel upset and would like some Kompany, they should feel 3 2 pop round 😉
Okay, the press was unsuccessful at getting Arsene Wenger to to talk about biased officiating. But, problems Arsenal have been seeing are due in part to unbiased officiating.
I can see why the press was doing what they did, and why AW replied the way he did.
From what I can tell, some independent source needs to provide the insight (and probably a lot of the work) to get the press to actually do the last step, and publish the conspiracy.
But no. I cannot see Arsenal or AW making accusations.
Anne, All,
As you may recall from my previous pieces on the Guardian, David Hytner of the Guardian was one of the paper’s 3 hit men in the recent and failed Arsene Out Campaign (Arsene is insane, lost the plot, etc.) and now, once again, paranoiac. David Hytner should be openly be called out for being a hit-man and misinformer of the public; as someone whose so-called journalism violates the public’s need to know, and on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter that this is “only” sports entertainment. This man writes de facto editorials that target Arsene at any opportunity and everyone should understand that this is what David Hytner does for a living. It is really shameful that Arsene/Arsenal should be this stenographer’s meal ticket; and a serious blight on the Guardian’s reputation. I would hope that the club would one day compile a list of what this man has done vis a vis Arsenal since August to damage AFC’s chances and brand: to seriously consider a lawsuit for his excesses and attempt to show his intent to harm the club and, by extension, to materially devalue the brand. A real reporter does not do this.
Anne, All,
It is high time that the camera at the press conference shows the person who is asking the question/doing the goading. This way there is accountability and jorno’s behavior can be analyzed and understood: What patterns are at work? Who asks what sort of question? Under what circumstances? Why do jorno’s get anonymity? Is there some sort of rule that they do not appear? Arsenal Player should get its own act together and let the public see its journalistic stand-ins at play. If they are there to provoke/goad/ambush Arsene Wenger, there should be a video record of this. And if certain jornos do so and then go on to misrepresent what in fact was said, which they provoked in the first place, then viewers and readers could see for themselves, and AFC could consider taking action (banning, law suits) based on a demonstrable record of biased so-called reporting. Fair is fair, and journalism should practice what it preaches; or it is not journalism, but lurking and telling lies with intent.
Arvind, I did watch the game yesterday. I am unbiased when it comes to those two teams, apart fro the fact I think they both equally get away with murder with refs.
Kompany, by the letter of the law – it was red, but still harsh,especially when you see what goes unpunished against our players at times, you know elbows in the fact, pushing people into the stands, that kind of thing. Kompany went for the ball and was not high. The ref missed a pen for each side too.
But what got me was the number of niggly fouls comitted by Utd he was letting go, Walters says a dodgy ref can be indicated how he behaves on the little 50-50s, with Foy, these seemed to go only one way.
However, I am no ref so I will wait and see if there is a ref review on this one, lets see how Ref Rooney did? Wonder if this game will be deemed to be adding fuel to the fire over preferrential treatment of England internationals, unless your name happens to be Theo of course.
On the subject of the press and Wenger, still think it is time for him to stop feeding them anything. Wenger is an intelligent man, advised by intelligent men, they can sort this out without the UK press beng involved. Let them fill their column inches praising everything Spuds, Arry and Scott Parker does and leave us out of it.
^ elbows in the face!
@All:
Wow, look at what you can miss when you take a day off! Maybe I should explain right now that my house is currently overrun with 5-week-old puppies, which is cutting down on the time I have to devote to other matters 🙂
Will try to go back and respond to some of the more detailed comments above, but thanks to everyone who took the time to register their response.
@Geezer:
“The thing that worries me most is that “journalists” do this across the board for current and global affairs. No one has reported the impending SOPA bill being passed in America, effectively beggining the censorship of the internet worldwide. No one is reporting the sanctions imposed on Iran as a pre-cursor to war, only that they have “WMDs” (where have we heard that before?)”
Very good points. I think it’s important to remember that, as important as football is to all of us, these same issues that we’re analyzing here are also applicable in much more serious contexts.
@Kampala Gun:
No comment because I missed that match (please see puppy comment above) 🙂
@bjtgooner:
It had occurred to me as well that they could be trying to provoke him into saying something FA-charge-worthy. Note that the Sun’s article was headlined “Arsene sure to face FA charges…” or something like that. So it was definitely part of the angle.
@9jagunnerdoc:
I as well find it almost staggering the global scale on which this anti-Arsenal campaign is being conducted. You say it has reached Nigeria as well? Unsurprising, unfortunately. I think it really says something about the extent of global media consolidation, if nothing else. But it might say more about something else as well.
@bob:
I definitely remember Hytner from your Guardian articles, and I’ve been trying to keep an eye on him as a result. I thought that his “conspiracy theories” quote, above, was a classic.
I also agree that it would be nice to know which journalist asked which question. I have tried to look into this, but without success.
Anne,
Yes, Hytner would have a sense of what “dark conspiracy” likely means. It is vicious on his to have participated and continue to character assassinate someone (AW), as this shows, and then point to him as paranoiac. Hytner lives in a conscience-free zone when it comes to what he is willing to put in print as well as to exclude from print. One can only assume that his sports editor bears equal accountability.
Sorry for the lateness of this, but while trying to relive Henry’s perfect re-debut (is that a word? I don’t care it was brilliant) I came across this BBC interview where around 45 seconds in Wenger states the ref was naive.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/16386780.stm
Have you ever heard a journalist argue that a club should not buy an exhorbitantly expensive player-or even put the other side to spending big?
Perhaps they are too intertwined with others whose noses are deep in the money trough like agents and some selected players and managers. If Arsenal were spending big and leaking their intentions all over the media we would be their darlings.
Even so,I do not think even in these days of Murdoch rags that the media are all lined up against Arsenal specifically-its just that we don’t play their game. They are desperate for stories-any stories.
Frankly if we distrust the medias reporting so much why hold post match press conferences?
Yes, I am coming up late again. I’m not trying to avoid comments. Arsene and Arsenal cannot be seen to make comments to expose a conspiracy.
What has to happen, is to present evidence that cannot be ignored, that the PGMOL is not producing the product it should (unbiased refereeing of games).
To just have Walter point out that some observation (average) is different than expected, isn’t enough.
A person needs to show that this observation is unlikely. It is not likely due to chance. The difference is due to a conscious decision on the part of the referee and possibly assistants.
Waving numbers around without analysis isn’t going to prove anything. There are people interested in UA who are knowledgeable in statistics. We need numbers and data to work with.
I’ve tried to produce mechanisms to put standard deviations on estimations, and there is little interest in implementing them. I’ve done numerical work to provide bounds on EPL estimates of official accuracy. And all I see is no comment. No questions as to how I found things, no questions as to how to interpret things. Nothing.
Is there any point in my trying to help UA in this?
I’m sorry, I’m not “normal”. I need feedback.
@Gord:
Ideally, what sort of evidence would you like to present, and to who?
@Chad:
I will update the article based on this information, and give you credit for correcting me. Thanks.