Digital Analogue: Innumeracy in the media

January 09, 2009

Innumeracy in the media

It's such a little thing, but I get just completely infuriated when media use numbers to sound like they're saying something, without actually saying anything at all. For instance, these lines from BBC article:

While [the Juan Valdez icon] has ascended, winning various advertising awards, Colombia's coffee industry has declined.

In the 1950s, it made up 80% of the country's exports.

Today, Colombia produces less green coffee than Vietnam and only a quarter as much as Brazil.

They give three numbers in an effort to show the decline of the Colombian coffee industry, but in fact they are incomparable: the numbers they present for Vietnam and Brazil are entirely consistent with the possibility that coffee still make up 80% of Colombian exports. We just don't know. Similarly, given only these data it's entirely possible that 1950s Colombia produced less than Vietnam or Brazil.

I'm not sure which bothers me most: that the journalist might not understand that the numbers are not comparable, that the journalist might think his readers won't notice, or that he might be right in such an assumption.

"Chicago enjoys a myth about itself---tough, brawling, but also amiable---that's grounded in a certain amount of bad behavior. A lot of people here like the legend of corruption, if not the actual practice. Corruption makes good stories." --Mary Schmich

Posted by blahedo at 3:01pm on 9 Jan 2009

Comments

I get what you mean completely — it is frustrating when media toss out numbers that look informative but don’t actually tell us anything meaningful. Those examples from the BBC show exactly that problem. Each statistic might sound impressive on its own, but none of them actually connect in a way that proves the point the writer is trying to make. Saying coffee was 80% of Colombia’s exports in the 1950s doesn’t tell us anything about production compared to Vietnam or Brazil today. And comparing raw production numbers doesn’t tell us whether coffee remains a major part of Colombia’s export economy. They’re mixing proportions with absolute quantities, and that leads to conclusions that might not even be supported by the data. Honestly, I’m not sure what’s worse either: – the possibility that the journalist didn’t realize the numbers don’t line up, – that they assumed readers wouldn’t catch it, – or that they might be correct about many readers not noticing. Either way, it highlights how important it is to question data presentation — especially when it’s used to shape a narrative. Misleading numbers can sound authoritative even when they’re saying nothing at all. Visit: phillyfoundationrepair.com Posted by Philadelphia Foundation Repair at 1:27am on 23 Nov 2025