NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS

Partisans of the right and (increasingly) partisans of the left accuse the media of political bias in its reporting. Some of these claims have merit, many do not, but other biases affect the news as well, if not more so. Certainly, something has to account for this laughable report from AFP:

"X Men: The Last Stand", the final installment of a Marvel comics trilogy, grossed 107 million dollars in its first weekend in North America, becoming the fourth biggest debut of all time, according to estimates. ... The new movie, based on the Marvel comic book series about a band of mutants, has been given rave reviews.

I suppose this is true insofar as some reviewers have given it their proverbial (or literal) thumbs up. But let's see what Rotten Tomatoes' summary looks like:


Hmm... not quite. What about Metacritic?


Hey, that's almost positive!

So what accounts for this? Probably a combination of things. Maybe this reporter only had time (or only bothered) to check Ebert's 3-star review and figured most critics would see it as he did (of course, even Ebert mostly defended the film against his better judgement). This would be the bias of laziness/harriedness — it's a continuum, I can tell you from experience.

Another possibility is that he or she merely assumed from the movie's impressive box office reports that it was also well-reviewed (though coming a week after "Da Vinci Code," this is even less defensible an assumption). I suppose this also falls under the time constraint bias too, but it leads me to think the reporter got caught up in the excitement (such as it is) of writing up a story about an extraordinary box office success.

It might also suggest a failure to grasp the difference between popular and elite appeal — though wouldn't a French news agency pay more attention to elite opinion than one of another nationality? — but I'm talking out loud here.

If nothing else it's just incredibly stupid.

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posted by WWB at 7:46 PM |