How Sources, Reporters View Math Errors in News

Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 2003 by Maier, Scott R

A case study of mathematical inaccuracy in The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., found that news sources identified an average of two stories with numerical errors in each newspaper edition.

The Fourth Estate recognizes that many journalists have difficulty interpreting and accurately reporting numbers. "Let's face it, we often report poorly because we fail to understand statistics, or take them into account or demand them, or get bamboozled by phony or unreliable numbers," said the late Victor Cohn, a former Washington Post reporter, in his authoritative guide News & Numbers.1

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Even the New York Times, which prides itself as the nation's premier newspaper of record, acknowledges it has problems getting its numbers straight.2 Columnist James J. Kilpatrick, who collects examples of mathematical errors in newspapers, has found so many elementary miscalculations that he ruefully concluded that many journalists cannot handle even grade-school math.3 Kilpatrick wrote, "This is the embarrassing fact: As a class, writers are arithmetical morons."4

Yet numerical competence is a requisite of quality journalism. When applied effectively by journalists, numbers are used to confirm, refute and qualify claims.5 They give authority to news reporting.6 Numbers also can be used to reveal underlying social and economic trends.7 Considering numeracy one of ten essential competencies for journalists, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies declared, "Simply put, journalists need math skills to make sense of numbers the way they need language skills to make sense of words."8

Despite the importance accorded to math skills in journalism, the media's propensity to misuse and abuse numbers remains poorly understood. To help address this deficiency, a mail survey of 1,000 news sources cited in a U.S. metropolitan newspaper was conducted to assess the paper's rate of mathematical inaccuracy, to identify the kinds of numerical errors made, to gauge the perceived severity of the errors and to explore how the mistakes occurred. A follow-up mail survey was conducted to obtain the reporter's view of mathematical errors identified by news sources. This twopronged approach sought to reveal differences between source and reporter perceptions of error as well as to trace ways that mathematical inaccuracies occurred. In doing so, this case study seeks to help guide efforts to improve mathematical competency in the newsroom, toestablish benchmark mathematical accuracy measures, and to stimulate further research of an age-old challenge.

Background and Research Questions

In a seminal accuracy study more than a half century ago, Charnley found that three Minneapolis daily newspapers repeatedly got their numbers wrong.9 Mathematical and numerical errors in the press have been detected in a long line of accuracy surveys that followed Charnley's path-setting efforts.10 In more recent years, journalistic innumeracy" has been found to contribute to inaccurate and misleading stories regarding African-Americans,12 banking,13 child abuse,14 drug abuse,15 education,16 the homeless,17 political polls,18 the poor,19 science,20 Social Security and Medicare,21 technological and natural disasters,22 and other topical issues. In A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, John Alien Paulos wrote that the most serious shortcoming of journalistic use of numbers is neither statistical ignorance nor blunder but a lack of appreciation of how mathematics can be used to sharpen and broaden the view of the world.23 Indicative of the perceived need for better reportorial use of numbers, two books recently have been published to guide reporters and editors when their work involves mathematics.24

While journalists generally consider themselves wordsmiths, working with numbers has become an inescapable part of their profession. For example, in an examination of 500 newspaper stories, Maier found nearly half of the stories involved mathematical calculation or numerical point of comparison.25 Researchers also have documented the need for skillful display of numbers as newspapers increasingly rely on informational graphics to convey quantitative information.26 Year after year, the use of computers for data analysis has led to Pulitzer prizes in journalism.27 Cohn wrote:

We journalists like to think we deal mainly in facts and ideas, but much of what we report is based on numbers. Politics comes down to votes. Budgets and dollars dominate government. The economy, business, employment, sports all demand numbers. . . . Like it or not, we must wade in.28

In exploratory research for this study, focus groups with newspaper reporters, editors and managers at the The [Raleigh, N.C.] News & Observer were convened to better understand how journalists perceive the role of numbers in their work. The researchers documented profound feelings of mathematical inadequacy harbored by numerous reporters and editors. Math anxiety was so acute that some said their judgment was impaired when dealing with numbers. But there also was a large contingent of working journalists who professed a strong sense of mathematical competency.29 In addition, reporters and editors at The News & Observer also were given an exam that tested their ability to apply basic math to real-life problems in daily journalism. As expected, the results documented weak math skills among a considerable portion of the news staff. Nearly one in five journalists missed more than half of the questions posed. But, surprisingly, strong performers in math outnumbered the weak performers.30

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How Sources, Reporters View Math Errors in News

Newspaper Research Journal, Fall 2003 by Maier, Scott R

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