Data: What Gets Reported, How the Process Works
Tim Harford, in How to Make the World Add Up , his book on how to make sense of data and statistics, highlights the problem with what comes to our attention: “When media outlets want to grab our attention, they look for stories that are novel and unexpected over a short time horizon – and these stories are more likely to be bad than good.” As an example, he cites all those headlines about the growth in global inequality. As always, the devil is in the details: yes, the gap between the richest of the richest and the poorest of the poor is indeed growing by leaps and bounds. But it’s also true that about 150,000 people are coming out of poverty every day. Yes, every day. Over the last couple of decades, China and India have pulled out almost a billion people out of poverty. See how this example aligns with Harford’s point on the headlines? Short term v/s long term; bad news v/s good news. Plus, as Harford reminds us, both “Another terrible crime has occurred!” and...