Sometimes mixing money and media makes people mad. In the case of a Mint.com blogger it created a frenzy of bad press and internet backlash. The Infographic has been banned, pulled off the web to hide the shame. So we just had to give the public another chance to see it and get the full story from the top sources…
The story starts with a recent post on Mint.com’s “mintlife” blog. On Wednesday, the site posted an infographic by Ross Crooks that mapped out the effect of Arizona’s anti-immigration law on the rest of the country. The chart has since been pulled from the site (you can spy a cached look at the site here), but many people who saw it were quickly alarmed and took to the blogs… via: fortune
Mint watches the Twittersphere turn on it — and then tells the world
In short, Patzer — who is also the vice president and general manager of Intuit’s (INTU) Personal Finance Group — disapproves, and says he’s dealing with the problem… . via: fortune
Mint CEO Patzer: “I personally don’t think Mint … should even be covering this particular topic”
The sources skew heavily in an anti-immigrant direction, although at least one is a pro-immigrant source (fiscalpolicy.org). While none of the other anti-immigrant sources is as offensive as vdare, few (if any) of them could be considered credible sources for statistics about immigration. Given its sources, it’s not surprising that the chart is riddled with implausible statistics. The most obvious whoppers are the claims that “about 43% of all Food Stamps issued in the United States are to illegal aliens,” and “about 41% of all unemployment checks issued in the United States are to illegal aliens.” Mint doesn’t give specific citations, but these claims appear to come from this article at “Charlotte Conservative News,” which itself does not cite any sources. Given that the law doesn’t allow undocumented immigrants to collect unemployment benefits, this claim doesn’t pass the straight face test. via: the atlantic
Mint.com Cites Racist Website in Anti-Immigrant Post
At MintLife, our mission is to give users and visitors the financial information they need to save and do more with their money. Topics range from personal finance advice, to analysis of macroeconomic trends and the fiscal impacts of news of the day. We publish content from a variety of contributors and sources, and the opinions expressed don’t necessarily reflect those of Mint.com or of Intuit.
It’s true that the tone is often provocative, seeking to engage readers in dialogue around important topics, but the recent blog post “The Economic Impact of Immigration” went too far, cited polarized sources and did not receive the editorial judgment and oversight it deserved.
We regret it. It is completely unacceptable and won’t happen again. Our intention was not to further the agenda of any of the sources from which data was pulled, and the post has been removed.
- Lee Sherman, Editor of MintLife via: mint
From the Editor @Mint.com
With the internet like any business, you must always watch what goes on. Bankruptcy can happen in situations like these overnight.