Common Sense Journalism

The silly number season

By Doug Fisher

To paraphrase a recent New York Times lead: It was a staggering sight. Upwards of dozens of papers and wire services reporting 29,000 people at a political rally, and almost all with the sheerest of attributions – or none at all.

The rally was the joint appearance by Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama and entertainer Oprah Winfrey at the University of South Carolina's Williams-Brice Stadium. Obama's organizers had moved it, saying early requests for tickets indicated it would be too big for the 18,000-seat Colonial Center.

The crowd's size was the news. "29,000 attend rally at Williams-Brice," The (Columbia) State headlined it. "The largest crowd yet of any event in the race to '08," CNN crowed. "Oprah, Obama pull record crowd," The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer declared. And, of course, the Times called it "a staggering sight."

Yet most of the stories reflect little reporting beyond campaign officials' assertions. I don't doubt the sincerity of Obama's aides or of the papers that repeated the number. But as journalists – and in the silly season of campaigning – we owe our readers more.

-- The Times had no attribution in Katharine Q. Seelye's "Oprahpalooza in South Carolina" of that Sunday or in her next-day follow-up. The State's story didn't either, though by connecting some dots and looking at a graphic (work the reader should not have to do), it appears the reference came from Obama.

-- The AP, CNN and Reuters all attributed the number to campaign officials. CNN was explicit in its first two paragraphs, a smart thing if the crowd was, indeed, the story.

-- The Observer at least sought two sources: "Police estimated the crowd at between 25,000 and 30,000. Obama staffers said more than 29,000 were in the stadium."

But there is no indication the reporters or their editors asked the simple question "How do we know that?" – one of the six questions for editors with which I began this column six years ago.

Many police departments have stopped giving official crowd estimates because it's too squishy to figure out. The State, in a story about a St. Patrick's Day festival earlier in the year, highlighted the problem. In 1989, it said, the paper had reported a crowd of 175,000. Once organizers started selling wristbands to get beer, however, that dropped to about 35,000 (add a few more, of course, for non-drinkers).

Salon.com's Thomas F. Schaller, in the most detailed coverage as far as the crowd estimates, initially asserted the 29,000 without attribution. Later, he wrote, "On Sunday, Obama's team was trying to figure out just how big the Columbia event was." He quoted a former state Democratic chairman saying it was far bigger than a 10,000-person rally for Bill Clinton in 1992.

Still later, Schaller provided more detail – that people were given tickets only after filling out a volunteer card and that they then also received a list of people to call. This is useful information that can help readers judge the veracity of a claim. But did anyone think to directly ask how many tickets were given out? If so, no one told us.

(The State also mentioned the call sheets, saying 36,426 were passed out. But then was it 29,000 or 36,000 who attended? Ultimately, it appears the tickets might have been the best metric, assuming the campaign had a way to keep track of their count.)

In our number-drenched world, the silly season is now year-round. But journalists seem to accept numbers uncritically, or at least without telling readers how the person or group providing the number knows it is grounded in fact.

The Wall Street Journal, in a recent story about efforts to ban car washing at home, wrote: "In Santa Monica Bay, for example, 30 million to 40 million gallons of urban runoff from sources such as car washing flows into the bay every day when it doesn't rain, according to Heal the Bay, an environmental group."

It never explains how the group gets that number. And taking what might be a small number (car wash runoff) and mixing it inside a larger and more diffuse one (urban runoff) confounds things.

Journal columnist Carl Bialik, "The Numbers Guy," continually pokes and prods such assertions. Among his recent columns: "Longer Daylight Saving Time Motivated by Stale Stats," "Sales of Pirated Goods Lead to Fuzzy Figures" and "Weddings Cheaper Than Survey Suggests."

Someone from your newsroom should read Bialik and share his work every time.

And none of us should forget to ask: "How do we (or you) know that?" Over six years, its importance has just gotten stronger.

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.