Maura gay math
Epic math gaffe by Brian Williams & Mara Gay highlights great need for improved numeracy
When it comes to mindless journalistic blunders, there are brain cramps and then there are lobotomies.
Example of a brain cramp: the time in the late-1990s when, as a newspaper reporter, I referred to a lofty school student as “Dustin Hoffman.” He shared a first name with the famous actor, but not the last name, and my mind drifted into auto-celebrity actor mode as I tapped out my story.
The teen’s last name? I don’t remember, but I do recall his parents being peeved that I had interviewed the 17-year-old without their okay. (The story was about a lecturer who had been accused of sexually assaulting another learner during an overseas trip.)
To form my mistaken-attribution saga even stranger, those same parents’ upset was assuaged by what they saw as my intentional decision to shield his identity by concocting a misleading (and famous) last name. Apparently, they thought I was exercising some journalistic ethic in doing so. Nope, it was just a mindless blunder, of the brain-cramp variety.
Which brings me to that other type of journalistic blunder: the lobotomy.
A literal lobotomy, fo
A segment about the 2020 presidential election primaries on MSNBC News on March 5 caused a flood of comments on Twitter. Here is the tweet that brought the segment into the Twittersphere and started all the ruckus:
Both the guest, a member of the Brand-new York Times Editorial Board, and host Brian Williams failed to notice how absurd was the arithmetical claim being made.
If this is the first time you have seen this segment, it likely flew by too quickly to register. Here (right) is the original tweet that started it all.
Curious as to who put out the tweet, I checked her profile. (See below.) [Normally I anonymize tweets, even though they are public, but on this case the tweet was shown on stay national television.] She starts out with the claim that she is horrible at math. I have no plan whether she is or she isn’t. But that tweet does not display she is. It actually suggests she may be a better mathematical thinker than many – read on.
Many of the comments on Twitter lamented the poor arithmetical skills of the tweeter and the two media figures on the demonstrate. In fact, the story went good beyond Twitter. The next day, the Washington Post, no le
A factually incorrect tweet from journalist Mekita Rivas got more credit than it deserved on Thursday, when it was read on the air by MSNBC's Brian Williams.
The tweet criticized Michael Bloomberg's spending on his now-suspended presidential campaign, saying that the $500 million in campaign-ad spending could've instead been given to the 327 million people living in the United States, guaranteeing each person $1 million. Williams featured the tweet on his show, The 11th Hour, and he and his guest, New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay, took it at face value.
Of course, the math in Rivas' tweet makes no feeling. Bloomberg's campaign would've only been able to hand each American about $1.50, not $1 million.
"When I read it tonight on social media, it caring of all became clear," Williams said during Thursday's segment. "It's an unreal way of putting it."
Gay agreed with Williams. "It's an incredible way of putting it," she said. "It's true."
Later in the broadcast, during another segment, Williams apologized for the error. "While I contain you both and our audience paying attention, turns out Mara and I got the same grades at math. I'm speaking of the tweet we both
Brian Williams, Mara Gay create absurd math flub about Mike Bloomberg’s wealth
They’re a couple of on-the-airheads!
NBC’s Brian Williams and Brand-new York Times editorial board member Mara Gay reported that Mike Bloomberg spent $327 trillion on his doomed presidential bid.
The former New York City mayor, worth an estimated $65 billion, actually blew through about $550 million in three months before dropping out Wednesday, winning only American Samoa.
Williams and Gay cited a since-deleted tweet from freelance journalist Mekita Rivas, who wrote Bloomberg spent $1 million per U.S. resident.
Rivas later edited her Twitter bio to read, “bad at math.”
But Williams, the serial exaggerator suspended by the network for six months in 2015, presented the claim as fact.
“Somebody tweeted recently that actually with the money he spent he could have given every American a million dollars,” Gay said Thursday evening on Williams’s show.
“When I read it tonight on social media, it kind of all became clear,” Williams concurred.
In her tweet, Rivas wrote: “Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. popu