Irish Examiner innumeracy
Here’s a great example of numerical illiteracy spotted by my mate Tom:
some classic reporting in the Irish Examiner today…
“Department staff clocked up 20,000 sick days in the three years” is the headline. Closer examination of the article reveals there are 5,000 people in the department. Do the maths (which the paper doesn’t – I wonder why) and that’s a SHOCKING 1.3 sick days a year.
Even better is this quote: “Department of Agriculture staff clocked up 3,095 uncertified sick days last year – 653 of these on a Monday”
So that would be about a fifth of the sick days being taken on one of the five working days in the week. DISGRACE!
Let’s hear it for old media’s commitment to quality journalism!
Tags: funny, innumeracy, irish-examiner, lazy, mathematics, newspapers, reporting, statistics, stupid
Alexia Golez said,
May 1, 2009 @ 11:08 am
Nice catch :)
David Malone said,
May 1, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
Both the Small Firms Association and IBEC have issued press statements demonstrating that they don’t know that 2/5 is 40%. I’ve seen both RTE and Irish Times pick up on this and report it as news, without taking the piss out of them.
Chris Waigl said,
May 3, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
I wish I remembered where I recently saw a newspaper proclaiming, outraged, that fully 40% of absences for illness occur on a Monday or Friday.
TJ McIntyre said,
May 5, 2009 @ 10:24 am
I used to think Dilbert was satire. Now I realise it’s more documentary: http://www.mathbench.umd.edu/mod106_chisquare/page02.htm