Awesome journalism

I read those "commuter" papers on my way to work. They're convenient and free.

But, man, do they suck.

24 is by far the greatest offender, but Metro is filled with errors, omissions and nonsense every single day. I fear for the minds of those who take this stuff at face value.

This may or may not be related, since I saw the same story reported in The Star, but I thought I'd share this interesting tidbit of info that I came across and made me shake my head.

There was this study, see (you know how much I love those!), and in it a bunch of would-be researchers looked at immigrants to Canada versus those born here to see how they compared in terms of water safety. The headline reads: "Research compiled by the Lifesaving Society shows a strong need for water safety education targeted at Canada's immigrants."

Followed by stats.

Issue #1: "The Lifesaving Society’s survey polled 433 Canadian-born adults and 599 Canadian immigrants from the Chinese, South Asian, Southeast Asian and Muslim communities." So, basically, not immigrants from the other 70% of the world. That's thorough. I'm not sure this really represents an accurate reflection of "immigrants", but ok...

Issue #2: Metro, who published the story on their front page, says, "Even though 20% of immigrants said they cannot swim, 79% reported to the study that they planned to spend time around or on the water this summer." *GASP!* Someone warn these people!!!

...Hold on... 20% can't swim... 79% plan to be around the water... that means 21% won't be even near the water... 20% can't swim...

Wait...

Wow. Way to be alarmist. This, ladies and gentlemen, is front page news.