I listened to the same story on NPR this morning where the comment was
initially they had 700 kg of "chemical" (cannot remember which one). In a
later story on the same subject it was now 1500 lbs.
Mike Payne
----- Original Message -----
From: "James R Frysinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, 05 September 2007 13:51
Subject: [USMA:39334] Mixture of units in the press
The story about the three terrorists captured in Germany was reported on
cnn.com with a CNN byline and on foxnews.com with an AP byline. The CNN
article gave the mass of the hydrogen peroxide they accumulated, the mass
of an equivalent amount of TNT, and a distance from Frankfurt all in
metric units with US customary in parentheses. The AP article gave only US
customary units except that one one suspect managed to flee "300 meters
(yards)" before capture.
I'm starting to see more use made of metric units on these two websites,
especially for international news. But I'm also seeing signs that the
reporters are wrestling with ways to provide information in metric while
appeasing folks they think might not understand metric units.
Yet sometimes authors just provide metric information and let it go. In
the Spring 2007 issue of the quarterly magazine "Tennessee Home and Farm"
published by the Tennessee Farm Bureau there is an article called "Her
head's in the Clouds"
http://tnhomeandfarm.com/07spring/feature3.htm
written by Jessica Mozo. Mozo is given a ride on an Aeronica Champ 7AC by
America's only female barnstormer. The pilot, Gina Moore, of Gallatin
starts up the engine and says that they must wait until the oil reaches a
temperature of "40 degrees Celsius for takeoff". She calls out the
temperatures as "20 degrees" and "30 degrees" are reached. No other units
are used here or elsewhere in the article.
I find it ironic that some news services awkwardly juggle metric and
non-metric units and are inconsistent as to when they use the former,
while a light-reading magazine aimed at Tennessee farmers' families
blithely uses only metric temperatures in an article and doesn't bother
with conversions. Perhaps the news services are fearful of antagonizing
their American readers and are "sticking a toe in the water" to see if
that toe gets bitten off.
As metric units get used more and more commonly, especially when US
customary equivalents are not given, the American public and its law
makers will see them increasingly as being the "customary" units and
metrication will go forward more easily.
That would indicate that the news services are indeed sensitive to
readers' feedback. Therefore we should continue to compliment uses of
metric units and to gently provide advice on how to better write articles
when they get it wrong or don't provide metric measurements.
Jim
