We recently came across an online report by a local NPR station that began with a headline that stated that, “Philadelphia and Wilmington (are listed) as some of the least safe cities in the country, according to a new report.”

It followed up by saying “While Wilmington ranks as one of the least safe cities, it has some of the largest number of law enforcement employees per capita.”

This intrigued us and so we followed through with the original report, which had been created by WalletHub in its Safest Cities In America (2024) study. Very quickly, we were struck by the fact that we had been woefully misled by the headline, which was dramatic, and got us to explore further, but didn’t represent what the study was really about.

To WalletHub’s credit, it was entirely transparent about the factors considered in determining “safety.” They went far beyond what you might expect – murders, manslaughters, rapes, thefts and so on. In fact, the research looked at a very broad definition of safety, which included things like traffic fatalities, the likelihood of earthquakes or hurricanes, and even the financial safety of residents, measured by factors like unemployment rates and the share of the population that is uninsured.

Leaving aside our personal questions about whether or not such a broad swath of indicators should be mixed together to create a genuinely useful document, the point we want to make here is that, when it comes to lists of bests and worsts, the devil is in the details, but those details are often obscured when the lists are publicized by others.

A few months ago, we wrote a B&G Report titled, Why Many State and City Rankings Defy Reality, in which we complained about the many ways in which these rankings can be intentionally or unintentionally misleading. But that’s not our point in this column. The idea we want to stress is that in a day when headlines are designed to conjure up clicks, it’s more important than ever to look carefully behind the bold type.

In fairness to those who want to report about the findings of a rating or a ranking, there are many instances in which the methodology can be difficult to find or decipher. Not only are the criteria used in assembling ratings and rankings of major consequence, so is the methodology used in creating them.

Academic literature, by and large, is careful to explain precisely how findings were reached. But often the language used in the methodology section is so dense that comprehension may be difficult for all but those who are trained to understand and fairly utilize a scholar's work.

We'd like to borrow from the famous Latin phrase "Caveat Emptor," which means, of course, "Let the buyer beware," and suggest a new one, "Caveat lector index," which Google translate tells us means "Let the list reader beware."

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