Statistics without context = fake news

When the August U.S. unemployment numbers were released, The Wall Street Journal proclaimed "The economy creates another 1.4 million jobs, defying the pessimists."

 

It's not until the second paragraph of the article that they mention that the unemployment rate in August was 8.4%, only down by 1.8% versus July.  And that 238,000 of those new jobs were temporary census workers. (WSJ, 2020)

 

With a bit more searching online you can find out that between 1948 and 2020 the average unemployment rate was 5.76%.  And that in February 2020 it was 3.5%. (BLS, 2020)

 

Now that I have read these details from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report,  I am feeling a bit more pessimistic.  How about you?

 

Have you ever encountered a misleading headline or statistic?  Do you read the entire article or just the headline?  If something seems off do you research it further, or just move on?  Can you think of instance when knowing the context of data has changed your opinion?  

 

What about your news sources?  Who do you trust?  How do you stay well informed?

 

(2020, September 4)  The Jobs of August.  wsj.com.  Retrieved September 7, 2020, fromhttps://www.wsj.com/articles/the-jobs-of-august-11599260186  

 

(2020, March 11)  19.2 percent of the unemployed had been jobless for 27 weeks or more in February 2020.  U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Retrieved September 7, 2020, from  https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2020/19-point-2-percent-of-the-unemployed-had-been-jobless-for-27-weeks-or-more-in-february-2020.htm#:~:text=In%20February%202020%2C%20the%20unemployment,19.2%20percent%20in%20February%202020.

You can still reach rich people on tv -- you just need to know where to look.

Over the past few years data has been released showing that television is becoming an increasingly downscale medium.   Here is a blog I wrote about the topic back in 2009.  

http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2009/12/is-tv-becoming-downscale-medium.html

When you think about it, it make a lot of sense.  Since most wealthy people work full time how could they possibly devote 7-8 hours a day to watching tv?  And then there's the fact that the richer you are the more likely you are to read, so these folks are spending their mornings with The Wall Street Journal.

But, as it turns out, there is a television network that is the ideal place to reach people with household incomes of $100,000+.  Any guesses?  The answer is HGTV.  In the third quarter of 2013, HGTV was the most watched cable network for this target -- during prime time, daytime and weekends.  (Johnson, 2013)

I suppose I should have guessed when I read that Hillary Clinton said her favorite show was "Love It or List It."  I'm not so keen on that one.  But, whenever we're bored my husband will say -- "Let's watch some people buy houses."  So we too are part of the trend.  What about you?

Johnson, K. (2103, November 8)  Canada Has Its Close-Up.  Wall Street Journal.  pM3