Was reading ERR in Estonian language to improve my reading and noticed news article yesterday about food prices between EST and FIN.

[https://www.err.ee/1608365202/err-i-vaatlus-naitab-eesti-ja-soome-toiduhindade-vordsustumist](https://www.err.ee/1608365202/err-i-vaatlus-naitab-eesti-ja-soome-toiduhindade-vordsustumist)

Everything in this “price comparison” has gone wrong. For example they compare FIN 1.5% milk vs EST 2.5% milk with FIN cheapest price vs highest price product in EST. FIN product does not have a cap, but EST milk has. If they compare prices from cheapest Fin store, which does not have e-shop and most of the people don’t have access to LIDL, why don’t they compare it for example with Grossi which would be equal with LIDL in Finland. In Grossi I can buy 2.5% milk for 0.35€/l vs 0.95€/l in Fin LIDL. I buy my own 2.5% milk from rimi for 0.5€/l, and in Finland, I had to buy it for 1.2€ as LIDL is simply not everywhere. Also other product prices in news does not make any sense either… With my very own experience, I have to pay 50% less for food than we have in Finland and they have a quite big spot for this news article, so I guess it will reach a lot of people.

Do we have other news pages which actually check facts?

Edit: This seems to get some downvotes, maybe people think I’m nitpicking? What would you think if your biggest newspaper would state something which is completely false, maybe it is normal in Estonia, but at least in Finland we would never see articles like these. And also, I’m just trying to learn reading Estonia, and this was one of the articles I chose and was just disappointed and that is why I created this post and asked if this is normal thing for ERR. But seems like this was just a one poor article and it is not something what happens often.

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8 comments

  2. There’s a reason why it’s not possible not to “lie” with statistics. Which is why it’s best to stick with official statistics from [stat.ee](https://stat.ee) and not try and have a DIY inflation index.

    Unfortunately if you think ERR is bad, I don’t have good news for you.

  3. Overall, the article isn’t that good. It does the same thing food basket statistics does. It picks some hodgepodge of products that doesn’t really reflect most people’s everyday consumption and does a price comparison. Here they do it even worse.

    With all that considered your criticism aren’t that good either. Similar kind of nudging the facts or nitpicking stuff.

    >FIN cheapest price vs highest price product in EST

    Obviously no.

    >FIN product does not have a cap, but EST milk has

    Ok dude. Same packaging, minor difference.

    >If they compare prices from cheapest Fin store, which does not havee-shop and most of the people don’t have access to LIDL, why don’t theycompare it for example with Grossi which would be equal with LIDL inFinland.

    They seem to be using Maxima. Which is a cheap bargain store. Decent enough for comparison. It’s not like they are using Selver, Delice or Kaubamaja. Nitpick stuff all you want with that eshop stuff.

    >In Grossi I can buy 2.5% milk for 0.35€/l vs 0.95€/l in Fin LIDL. I buymy own 2.5% milk from rimi for 0.5€/l, and in Finland, I had to buy itfor 1.2€ as LIDL is simply not everywhere.

    Plastic bag milk is cheap.

  5. I think they specifically compared milk in a carton box and not plastic bag which usually is cheaper.

  6. This is just the type of article which tends to have biases no matter which news page would publish it.

    ERR still is the most decent news source and has very few low quality things compared to any other options.

  7. >but at least in Finland we would never see articles like these.

    Haha. Sure, buddy.

    First of all, a journalist is a writer that has failed in writing profession. They can’t write interesting books and thus are left to write about “news” or what they call “stories”. They have no skills, no knowledge and all they are left to do is to simply shitpost. That is what they do. Just take any newsworthy article about anything you are expert in and you’ll see so many mistakes. Now apply the same logic to topics you are not an expert in. They likely fucked up writing the story about things you know nothing about just as much as they fucked up in a story you know so much more than a dumb journalist.

    Bottom line is, journalists oversimplify everything and ultimately are trying to write a story regardless about facts and lets be honest, they aren’t experts in anything except journalism and thus can’t possibly present facts to begin with. So I rest my case and welcome you to the real world of journalism.

    As far as ERR is concerned, then they are government’s news. They are not there to fact check, they are there to broadcast government’s talking points to the public. What you probably saw was one of those low effort posts to fill the void, just like in 24/7 news that have those bullshit “filler” stories that only exist to fill the void until something interesting actually takes place.

    Ultimately, ERR exists to spread information about government and Estonia’s culture. That is all they do and why they exist. And as I have already established, it is pointless to expect journalists to present real facts since they can’t even begin to fathom what these so called facts are (they know too little about the topic to form any sort of conclusive objective opinion on – basically they are retards). So even if a clueless journalist tried to present facts, they are most likely going to fuck it all up and end up over simplifying a complicated situation, which will ultimately turn discussed topic into a shitshow.

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