No. 08 for September 2002
The old saying is that journalists never met a number they didn’t like – as long as it stayed as far away as possible. Then there’s the one about the reporter, numbers and the expense account, but that’s too scary to tell here.
One of those “common wisdom” things is that many journalists and numbers don’t get along very well. The reality is that journalists are swimming in a sea of numbers that grows deeper by the day, from budgets to polls to this week’s latest health-care survey.
That’s why any editor concerned about his or her staff’s comfort with numbers – and the surveys keep telling us there are a lot of concerned editors – should read a study about journalists and math by Patricia Curtin of North Carolina and Scott Maier of Oregon in the winter 2001 edition of Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly.
Unlike many densely worded papers, this one, based on close observation at a 150,000-circulation newspaper, is accessible and has some sobering conclusions for newsroom managers.
One is that the responsibility for checking numbers in stories too often is shuffled among journalists uncomfortable with the basic concepts, and that includes some editors. A copy editor told Curtin and Maier it was the reporter’s job; the reporter said, “I don’t have time to ask someone to check the math. That’s the editor’s job.”
Meanwhile, a top editor was left to ask, “We double check all numbers, don’t we?”
Numbers are best viewed as representing concepts, and those often are best reported not with figures, but with words. Yet another finding was that many in the newsroom consider numbers a “ticking time bomb.”
Unlike words and their shades of meaning, with which journalists are more comfortable, numbers too often are seen as immutable, and, as one said, “If you miss one figure on a number, you’ve got a correction the next day.”
You might say the answer is simply to practice some common sense. Many errors I see in newspapers and in broadcast news involve cases where the numbers simply don’t make sense, such as reporting that property taxes in South Carolina raise $2.3 million a year, when the state’s budget is $5 billion!
Yet as Curtin and Maier point out, common sense means little to someone who suffers from math anxiety: “How can one apply ‘common sense’ to something that is not intuitively clear?” And don’t assume that person can’t do math. What Curtin and Maier conclude is that many journalists can do math, but that ability is crippled by self-doubt.
Common Sense Journalism
September 2002 Page 2
But when journalists are uncomfortable with numbers, they become dependent on the truthfulness of their sources. That ought to be a concern to any right-thinking editor.
So what are the implications for newsroom managers? First, get a system that ensures numbers get checked by applying common sense. Most likely, that responsibility should lie with editors. But you might have to entice a reporter or two who has math skills onto the desk – or specifically hire people with those skills.
Second, make math part of your hiring test – but don’t just test whether someone can do the calculations. Remember, Curtin and Maier point out that many journalists can do math, but it’s math anxiety that keeps them from really understanding what numbers are and how to interpret them.
Instead, use that part of the test to give you an idea of what help that person might need, if hired, and then provide it. Beyond basic calculations such as percentages, your questions also should include “common sense” situations. (If you need some questions, contact me. But I suspect many of you have your own “honor roll” from your papers or Web sites.)
Finally, understand that math is like a foreign language – you can’t learn it in one lecture or one day of training. You or someone else will have to work with those on your staff who are math phobic. Gentle tutoring, not lecturing, is the key.
You can start, however, with two books that should be on every newspaper’s desk. Having Sarah Cohen’s “Numbers in the Newsroom” (Investigative Reporters and Editors, 2001) and Kathleen Woodruff Wickham’s “Math Tools for Journalists” (Marion Street Press, 2002) will signal that math is important.
I like Cohen’s book because it takes a more common-sense approach. It focuses not only on the concepts – percentages, probabilities, rates, etc. – but on how to express those concepts as words. Too many basic editing books skirt these issues. Cohen’s book, however, would be greatly improved by more relevant formulas and how to use them.
At times, Wiickham’s work is too elementary (she starts with what an equals sign means, though for the math phobic this might be a comforting beginning) and does not deal enough with how to express math concepts as language. But her book is packed with basic formulas and how to use them, and it has sample quizzes and answers.
Both are relatively inexpensive and short – Cohen’s is barely more than 100 pages and Wickham’s a bit more than 150. This is one of those cases where the sum is definitely more than its parts.
Doug Fisher, a former AP news editor, teaches journalism at the University of South Carolina and can be reached at dfisher@sc.edu or 803-777-3315.