Newsroom Math public编辑部数学公共.asu.pptVIP

* * Estimating crowds Beware the “official” estimate Better method: Estimate the area in sq meters (L x W) 1 person/meter in a loose crowd Divide by 0,75 for a tighter crowd Account for turnover? Newsroom math bibliography “Numbers in the Newsroom”, by Sarah Cohen, IRE “Precision Journalism (4th edition)”, by Phil Meyer “Innumeracy”, by John Allen Paulos “A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper,” by John Allen Paulos Preguntas?? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Newsroom math Prof. Steve Doig Cronkite School, ASU Journalists hate math Definition of journalist: A do-gooder who hates math. “Word person, not a numbers person.” 1936 JQ article noting habitual numerical errors in newspapers Japanese 6th graders more accurate on math test than applicants to Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism 20% of journalists got more than half wrong on 25-question “math competency test” (Maier) 18% of 5,100 stories examined by Phil Meyer had math errors Bad examples abound Paulos: 300% decrease in murders Detroit Free Press (2006): Compared ACS to Census data to get false drop in median income KC Star (2000): Priests dying of AIDS at 4 times the rate of all Americans Delaware ZIP Code of infant death NYT: 51% of women without spouses Common problems Numbers that don’t add up Making the reader do the math Failure to ask “Does this make sense?” Over-precision Ignoring sampling error margins Implying that correlation equals causation Dangers of journalistic innumeracy Misleads math-challenged readers/viewers Hurts credibility among math-capable readers/viewers Leads to charges of bias, even when cause is ignorance Makes reporters vulnerable to being used for the agendas of others The bad news… To be a good journalist, you MUST be able to do math The good news! …it’s grade school math! None of this stuff: Calculus Geometry proofs Base-12 Venn diagrams Ballistics Etc…. My office bookcase Sarah Cohen’s tips Keep the digits in a paragraph bel