Workplace fairness: Altogether, some 5,000 lawsuits are filed against Wal-Mart each year

[JayhawkSD]

1. I don't disagree with any part of this, but...

"Wal-Mart reported a net income of over $11 billion last year..."

Citing raw numbers with no context in this fashion is bad journalism; widely and frequently practiced, but still bad journalism.

I don't know the context for Walmart, and I'm not going to bother to look it up because a) I'm not interested in defending Walmart and b) I've done it too many times to count already in other cases.

"Health Insurance companies made $x billion in profits..." turns out to be empty rhetoric when you look at their reports and find that they made a profit of no more than 8% of their revenue, which is a long way from the usurious profit implied by the writer. A writer, it should be pointed out, who is ignoring the 50% profit margin made by drug companies and the 44% profit margin made by hospitals. The writer had an axe to grind, demonizing the health insurance industry and blaming them for the high cost of health care, and was not going to be deterred by any facts.

Politicians, of course, do the same thing by giving us budget numbers with no context, such as how they relate to overall spending. Even worse, they quote the amount for ten years when they are passing a one-year budget. Still, in arguing our case, we should be better than politicians.