Spot the Bias: "Banking Industry Continues to Stalk Grieving Widows"

Here’s a fun game. Take a quick read-through of this story and meet me back here:

Banking Industry Continues to Stalk Grieving Widows

Sometimes, when an argument isn’t necessarily strong, or great, or even correct, what one can do to revitalize that argument — or distract from its ridiculousness — is to utilize provocation. Like, for instance: someone bullying widows.

Bullying widows is probably never good. And it sure is attention-getting. And if a reader is already primed to be angry — because how else can one react to bullied widows? — then it makes it tough to see the bias and re-assess the article’s argument.

For one thing: no. The entire banking industry is not out there stalking grieving widows.

For another: most of the examples in this press release are self-reported from the effected debtor. First-person accounts are tricky; the best position to take is one of at least mild skepticism. (There are more first-person accounts if you follow the link to the report they want you to read: the subtley titled Until Debt Do Us Part: The Business of Modern-Day Grave Robbery.)

The release hides the fact that the issue it’s trying to exacerbate — that thing about the widows — wasn’t a big enough issue for legislation. Hidden towards the bottom, you’ll read: “the FTC…declined to institute a ‘cool-down’ period this August that would have prevented lenders or their affiliates from contacting grieving family members for 45 days following the death of a debtor.”