Richard Gottlieb

Making sense of the news
December 12, 2007

I, as I am sure many of you, am constantly updating my information on what is happening in the toy industry this selling season.  I do this through first hand conversations with my contacts as well as reading numerous magazines, newspapers and on-line sources of information.

Making sense of all of this means having to evaluate the accuracy of data as well as the reliability of sources.  This week I found a newspaper article that was so misleading that I decided to share it with you as a textbook case of highly misleading reporting.

As you can imagine, my eyes were immediately drawn to a prominent headline in the New York Sun that read:  “Lead Fears Make Wooden Toys the Rage.”  I have clients in the wooden toy business so the December 7, 2007 by Tatyana Gershkovich quickened my pulse. 

Here is the opening sentence:  “Independent toy stores in the city that sell old-fashioned wooden playthings are booming thanks to this year’s many recalls of Chinese-made plastic toys containing hazardous levels of lead or toxic chemicals.”

After reading this, I anticipated some nice quantifiable research that made her case.  Short of that I expected to see that a cross section of representative retailers was contacted.  Uh-uh! 

The headline and opening sentence did not deliver.  Rather, the article contained a grand total of five highly suspect anecdotes

The first, believe it or not, quoted a correspondent from Comedy Channel’s The Daily Show, Samantha Bee, who said that “ . . . she shuns large retailers in favor of locally owned stores to avoid buying dangerous and ‘junky’ toys.”  There was, oddly, no mention of wooden toys, China, lead paint, or toxic chemicals.

The second was the manager of West Side Kids who “ . . . said her small store . . . had seen many new customers looking for wooden toys this season.”  She did not say why.  Though she mentioned wooden toys she did not indicate why there was an increase in sales nor was there any mention of China, lead paint or toxic chemicals

The third quoted an “Upper West Side mother” who said that her friends are choosing wooden toys “. . .because a wooden toy doesn’t tell you what to do with it, so the child will exercise his imagination more.”  Again, there was no indication that the desire to buy wooden toys had anything to do with safety or China.

The fourth quote was from the operator of a toy store called Enchanted, which only sells wooden toys.  She explains that children love her store because nothing is wrapped and they can touch the toys.  Once again, there is nothing said about China or toxicity.

The final quote was from another storeowner who simply states that she knows everyone who shops in her store and that she therefore writes down what each person buys so that there are no repeat gifts.  Huh?  What does this have to do with the rest of the article?

I am, to say the least, very disappointed in the New York Sun.  It is no New York Times but it is considered a serious newspaper with good reporting. This article, however, was highly deceptive from beginning to end. 

So, let the reader beware.  While taking in toy industry news this season, do so with a critical, if not skeptical, eye and ear.

Posted by Richard Gottlieb on December 12, 2007 | Comments (0)