A current example of unbelievably lazy reporting is the many online news outlets regurgitating Internet security concern Sophos’ most recent quarterly so-called “dirty dozen” spam-relaying countries list.
The U.S. always tops it, yet online publications always report it like it’s news. Folks, the only way Sophos’ “dirty dozen” list should warrant a headline is when the U.S. isn’t the so-called top spam-relaying nation.
Moreover, news outlets never seem to ask the folks at Sophos what being the top spam-relaying country means. Does the U.S. relay a lot of spam to other countries, or mostly internally? Does the relayed spam mostly originate from outside the country or inside? Does it mean spammers from other countries are using vulnerable U.S. machines? Is there something people should be doing to try and prevent it?
And why is this news always spun as if the U.S. is polluting the Internet? Is it possible that the U.S. is the top spam-relaying country because its citizens are targeted most often?
Also, when Sophos ranks continents, North America comes in third behind Asia and Europe. But that list rarely gets reported.
And while we’re at it, there’s another common, lazy e-mail story currently making the rounds: the “Spam-is-[insert large percentage here]-of-all-E-mail” story. How can anyone possibly know what percentage of all e-mail spam is? They can’t. But news outlets report these figures without showing any evidence that the reporters asked for an explanation of how they were calculated. Was it based on how much e-mail was blocked versus what was successfully delivered into users’ inboxes? If so, how do we know that what was blocked was spam and what made it wasn’t?
The “Spam is X Percent of all E-mail” story is meaningless. Moreover, that spam makes up a large percentage of e-mail traffic stopped being news a looooong time ago.
Spam percentages shouldn’t draw headlines again until they plummet. And the U.S.’s rank as a spam-relaying country shouldn’t make news unless it is something other than No. 1. But then, adhering to those guidelines would force a lot of reporters to avoid regurgitating Sophos’ list and do some actual reporting.
