I'm well aware of the proxy metrics they chose, and have thought of several ways each could be juked. I'm talking about the heart of the matter which the proxie

I'm well aware of the proxy metrics they chose, and have thought of several ways each could be juked. I'm talking about the heart of the matter which the proxies were selected to measure. You can reasonably dispute my claim about what the heart is or what underlying reality the proxies were selected to measure, but regardless this whole thing is a big Motte and Bailey: I say the proxies are bad and poorly measured for the spirit of the matter, and you (in a broad sense I mean--like anyone inclined to reply like you are), point out that there is no spirit, it's just the metrics themselves and nothing more, and that I can't read more into it than that. That I can't impugn the results for not measuring something it never intended to measure. Fine. But then, also, separately, these results are in fact (I predict, and would bet) going to be used to support broad, "spiritual-style" claims about the health and usefulness of the global press in general, that are misleading and overbroad based on what was actually measured and how. This trick is one of the main problems with the way science and journalism are conducted today. I have heard it termed "Distributed Motte and Bailey."