Three weeks ago, a national media splash alleging a huge \u201cspike in pregnancies\u201d at one Memphis high school variously reported that 86 or 90 girls representing 18% or 22% or \u201cone-fourth\u201d of the female student body were pregnant. Fox News<\/a>, MSNBC<\/a>, CNN<\/a>, the New York Daily News<\/a><\/i>, and The Daily Beast<\/a> were among those that aped mindless sensationalism rather than carefully checking facts; only a few, such as National Public Radio<\/a>, were properly skeptical. Model\/reality-celebrity Kim Kardashian<\/a> (just in time for her newest nude photo spread and suggestive ad; sorry, no sex tape this time) grabbed limelight, blaming MTV\u2019s \u201cTeen Mom\u201d program for the Memphis pregnancies, and the commentariat predictably flamed.<\/p>\n It would be comical\u2014another media free-for-all over another supposed \u201cteen sex crisis,\u201d just like the phony Gloucester \u201cteen pregnancy pact\u201d hullaballoo in which every lurid press-trumpeted \u201cfact\u201d turned out to be fiction\u2014reaffirming how vulnerable the vocal moralizers to swallowing just about \u201cteen crisis,\u201d no matter how lunatic. If valid, Memphis\u2019s \u201cteen pregnancy\u201d levels would be higher that found in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n Where did Memphis\u2019s scary numbers come from? When YouthFacts investigated, we found the standard grownup gossip-frenzy. It began with local interest groups spreading made-up numbers to worshipful press coverage. Then, when the stats were exposed as faulty, the same interests that had broken their legs getting in front of reporters suddenly dummied up in \u201cwe never said that!\u201d demurrance.<\/p>\n As far as we could find, the \u201c90 pregnancies at one high school\u201d numbers were first reported by Memphis\u2019s Fox News<\/a>affiliate, which attributed them to an unnamed \u201ccoalition helping to reduce the teen pregnancy rate in Memphis City Schools.\u201d Our email to the story\u2019s reporter, Jill Monier, asking for the name of the \u201ccoalition,\u201d (specifically, whether she meant the school-community coalition<\/a> formed on the issue) received no response. Another Fox reporter we queried, Les Smith, did reply, claiming the number came from an unnamed official in the Memphis schools office who preferred anonymity. Already, the big story was headed Gloucesterward.<\/p>\n After a few days of nationwide furor, Memphis\u2019s daily newspaper<\/a> and most officials took more factual approach. Memphis Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash<\/a> declared the numbers were wrong<\/a>; while there may have been a program serving the entire Frayser community and several high schools, no one school has more than \u201c20 pregnant students<\/a>.\u201d Local teen pregnancies, far from increasing, actually are on the \u201con the decline<\/a>,\u201d health and city officials confirmed from state tabulations. \u201cThis is not a new problem,\u201d Cash said of high pregnancy rates in severely impoverished areas.<\/p>\n In fact, a staggering \u201c36% of children live in poverty,\u201d the Urban Child Institute\u2019s 2010 report<\/a> concluded. \u201cThe Memphis child poverty rate is double the national rate.\u201d Cash also cited the uncomfortable point that the fathers aren\u2019t usually teen boys: \u201ctoo often in Memphis it\u2019s not the peer group. There are older males who are predators on these young females.\u201d Another girl cited \u201cgenerational rape<\/a>\u201d: \u201cher grandmother was raped and became pregnant with her mother, then her mother was raped conceiving her, and then she became pregnant through rape.\u201d Concluded Cash: \u201cThese are young people who are under siege just to survive every day.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the local Girls Inc. CEO Deborah Hester Harrison chose instead to grandstand with emotional claims, all absent any glimmer of evidence, that \u201cthe teen pregnancy rate in Frayser is 26 percent,\u201d Memphis\u2019s teen pregnancy \u201cproblem is growing,\u201d \u201cit\u2019s more acceptable now in this generation to become pregnant,\u201d and MTV\u2019s \u201cTeen Mom\u201d and \u201csexually oriented\u201d society are to blame for \u201cteen pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n All complete junk. My January 29, 2011, op-ed<\/a> in the New York Times<\/i> stated: \u201cthe scary number\u201d that \u201cone-fourth of girls at a Memphis high school were pregnant\u2026 had been publicized by a local official with the advocacy group Girls Inc.\u201d and \u201cwas vastly exaggerated.\u201d Girls Inc.\u2019s national publicist disputed my attribution, claiming the statement by Harrison to local<\/a> and national<\/a> media that \u201cthe teen pregnancy rate in Frayser is 26 percent\u201d referred to the entire Frayser community<\/i> (specifically, the 38127 zip code), not Frayser High School<\/i>.<\/p>\n I’m happy to acknowledge that correction. The problem is, Girls Inc. is guilty of an even wilder exaggeration. The following two news accounts are typical:<\/p>\n “The national rate of teen pregnancy is 10 percent,\u201d explained Deborah Hester Harrison, president and CEO of Girls Incorporated of Memphis, which is working to raise awareness about the issue. \u201cOur state rate is 13 percent, and our city rate is somewhere in the 16 to 20 percent range.\u201d \u2026 The teen pregnancy rate in Frayser [community] is 26 percent,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cThere are 10 in this city that have 20 percent or more\u2014zip codes of teen pregnancy.\u201d These numbers, collected by the University of Memphis, are based on 2008 statistics. But Harrison said the problem is growing, and expands beyond the city of Memphis.\u201cIt\u2019s more acceptable now in this generation to become pregnant,\u201d Harrison theorized. Her group hopes to change that with a two-year pilot project, a campaign to raise awareness. The \u201cNo, Baby\u201d program will start at Frayser High, before expanding across the city. Harrison says the group chose Frayser because Girls Inc. has a history working with the school, and wanted to re-establish those ties. The group will work with Memphis City Schools too. \u2014Dancy, S., \u201cMemphis Teen Pregnancy Rate Passes National Average<\/a>,\u201d ABC24<\/i>, Memphis, January 14, 2011<\/p>\n In Memphis, the teen pregnancy rate is between 15 percent and 20 percent \u2013 and in Frayser, the rate is 26 percent, said Deborah Hester Harrison, executive director of Memphis\u2019 Girls Inc. It\u2019s no surprise that Harrison places at least part of the blame on the media, such as the popular MTV shows \u201c16 and Pregnant\u201d and \u201cTeen Mom.\u201d “So much of our society is sexually oriented. As adults we can look at that and it doesn’t impact us, but kids are different,” Harrison said. \u2013Eng, James, \u201c90 pregnancies at one high school<\/a>,\u201d MSNBC<\/i>, 14 January 2011<\/p>\n Readily available Tennessee Department of Health<\/a> figures for 2008 and national statistics show that 4.4% of Shelby County\u2019s (Memphis\u2019s) and 3.1% of Tennessee\u2019s girls and women age 10-19 became pregnant in 2008. Nationally,Centers for Disease Control<\/a> figures indicate, that figure is around 3.5%\u2014all far below the Girls Inc. claims. Further, TDH (along with the national CDC and Alan Guttmacher Institute) figures show that in 2008 and 2009, the rates of pregnancies and births among women age 10-19 had fallen to their lowest levels in decades, and perhaps ever.<\/p>\n “Sexually oriented\u201d society or not, this generation of young women are much less<\/i> likely to get pregnant than previous ones. Instead of publicizing these positive realities amid the harsh conditions many young women face, Girls Inc.<\/a>\u2014which professes to value \u201cinspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold\u201d\u2014publicly misrepresented a generation of girls in Memphis and across the country as irresponsibly courting pregnancy in rising numbers due to their own bad attitudes and immature aping of sexy television shows.<\/p>\n Girls Inc. not only repeatedly declared that one-fourth of girls in the Frayser community were pregnant, they lent the organization\u2019s name to a raft of media stories publicizing the false claim of 86 or 90 pregnancies at Frayser High, never once issuing a disclaimer challenging the erroneous figures. Even after repeated queries by YouthFacts and the Times<\/i>, Girls Inc. refused to provide either the exact numbers of pregnancies in the Frayser community they were citing or the source of the figures. Instead, the group variously attributed them to \u201cresearch\u201d by unnamed \u201ccity\u201d or University of Memphis<\/a> or local health department researchers, none of which was true.<\/p>\n When we finally tracked down the University of Memphis researchers who compiled statistics on local zip codes, we found that Girls Inc. had misrepresented their findings as well. The director of the university\u2019s Center for Research on Women<\/a> said the real numbers, compiled by associate professor Phyllis Betts<\/a> of the Community Building and Action program at the University of Memphis from Shelby County Health Department<\/a> data, showed that in the Frayser community in 2008, 25.6% (271 of 1,056) total births were by mothers under age 20. Researchers made no claims about teen pregnancies or rates, which are very different matters. In fact, that 271 births in the community were by mothers under age 20 implies a pregnancy rate less than one-<\/i>third what Girls Inc. claimed, higher than average but hardly unusual for impoverished urban communities.<\/p>\n So, like the \u201cGloucester teen pregnancy spike and pact,\u201d in which there was no spike\u00a0 and no pact, Memphis did not have \u201c90 pregnancies at one high school\u201d or a spectacular \u201cteen pregnancy rate of 26 percent\u201d in its Frayser high school or community. There was no wantonly pregnant generation, no horde of \u201cTeen Mom\u201d-seduced girls. It was all just grownup gossip that various interests and media spread to gain anticipated advantages, then dodged responsibility for when the numbers went bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “90 pregnant teens at one Memphis high school!” media splash turns out to be just grownup gossip February 7, 2011 Three weeks ago, a national media splash alleging a huge \u201cspike in pregnancies\u201d at one Memphis high school variously reported that 86 or 90 girls representing 18% or 22% or \u201cone-fourth\u201d of the female student […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-924","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85023,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/924\/revisions\/85023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}