Newsies and numbers

[D H]

I see more and more journalists who just seem to make stuff up nowadays, particularly so with numbers. A specific instance: A recent AP wire release on the Hillary Clinton campaign includes the innocuous statement

About 100,000 people in the Houston area work for NASA's Johnson Space Center or related industries.

A google search for this exact phrase: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22About+100,000+people+in+the+Houston+area+work+for+NASA%27s+Johnson+Space+Center+or+related+industries%22&filter=0

 

Big deal! So someone changed the 16,000 to 100,000. My issue: that number is preposterous. That it slipped through unchecked and was printed as-is in many newspapers and e-papers points to a much bigger problem, which is that journalists, writers, and editors have no mathematical sense whatsoever. They are innumerate.

[john5746]

http://www.houston.org/blackfenders/16ACW001.pdf

 

Not defending the article, but I think the catch is "related industries".

[D H]

The 16,000 workers cited by Bill Clinton includes NASA contractors, direct and indirect. What else could "related industries" mean? Aviation in general? NASA's budget is a bit over 16 billion dollars. Let's say the average employee costs $200,000. This includes not only salary put also benefits, equipment, office space, overhead, profit, etc. That number might well be on the low side. Divide 16 billion by 200,000 -- NASA's budget nationwide represents about 80,000 employees. Some of the overhead pays for other people's salaries (secretaries, accountants, managers, ...), so make this 100,000 people. That is nationwide. One has to be very inclusive regarding the meaning of "the Houston area" and "related industries" to go from 16,000 to 100,000.

 

How many gas stations are there in the US? Most journalists wouldn't have the foggiest idea where to start. They are innumerate. I suspect many here at SF could come up with a reasonable guess.

[Pangloss]

Well regardless of the NASA count, I think your point about bad numbers being quickly spread around is well founded, and has been recognized for some time by many media analysts and observers. The common meme is that journalists are lazy and/or underpaid for the amount of work they have to do (when I was at CNN in the early 1990s an typical video journalist started at less than $16,000/yr, and that was a fairly prestigious job!). There's also too much dependence on specific outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, which end up setting the top stories for the entire industry on a daily basis.

 

According to Howard Kurtz in his latest book, the morning shows -- Today, Good Morning America, and whatever they have on CBS these days -- begin calling agents for guest slots at 10:30pm on a typical weeknight. It's no accident that this is shortly after the New York Times posts the next morning's edition on its web site.

 

As to whether or not this is actually a problem, Kurtz goes on to say:

 

In a broader sense, the slavish devotion with which ABC, NBC and CBS follow the lead of the major papers -- especially the New York Times -- betrays more than a lack of imagination. It is an abdication of news judgement, a form of pack journalism that also reflects how the staffs of these programs are constantly a step behind. They are packagers and popularizers, not groundbreakers.

 

(From Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War, by Howard Kurtz, page 430, published in October 2007.)

 

The point being that reading the New York Times, Googling, and scanning Wikipedia articles is no substitute for good journalism. But too many journalists stop right there, considering their jobs to be about shovling the same story over to a different audience.

 

On a more positive note, some of the best journalism ever to happen still takes place on a regular basis. It's just harder to find these days, that's all.

[D H]

I used the NASA count as a metaphor for the rampant innumeracy in the non-technical world. We truly are a society of two cultures. Another metaphor: Google the exact phrases "physics for poets" and "poetry for physicists". The former yields a list of classes with that exact title. Heaven forbid that the instructor of "Physics for Poets" use one single mathematical equation. The non-technical world is molly-coddled when it comes to math. What one finds with the latter phrase are physicists who actively participate in both cultures. Are there any dumbed-down poetry classes for culturally-ignorant physics majors? No. If we want to study Shakespearean poetry, we have to do so alongside the English majors.

[swansont]

The innumerate thing that bugs me is unit conversions which completely ignore significant figures, like "A 60 ft (18.29m) tall creature called Godzilla attacked Tokyo today ..."

[ParanoiA]

As to whether or not this is actually a problem' date=' Kurtz goes on to say:

 

In a broader sense, the slavish devotion with which ABC, NBC and CBS follow the lead of the major papers -- especially the New York Times -- betrays more than a lack of imagination. It is an abdication of news judgement, a form of pack journalism that also reflects how the staffs of these programs are constantly a step behind. They are packagers and popularizers, not groundbreakers.

 

Ooh, that's got to hurt considering Rush is always going on about how the "drive-by's" get their news from him. While I always chuckle and presume it's a competitive 'dig', it's almost sad to see Kurtz validate the concept.

 

Interesting post guys.

[Pangloss]

It was a remarkable book, I must say. My copy is heavily dog-eared.