These slides were part of a session on Mastering Math to Tell Better Stories by Ron Nixon of the New York Times. Find out more about Reynolds Training here: http://businessjournalism.org/category/workshops/

1. Do the Math: A Basic guide
for using numbers in stories
Adopted from former IRE training Director
David Donald with additions by Ron Nixon

3. The Truth About Numbers!
• Figures don’t lie, but liars figure—Mark
Twain.

4. Innumeracy
•
•
•
•
No math required by my j-school.
Math ignorance as badge of honor.
We’ve got our nerd.
My source will give me the numbers we
need.
• Numbers are hard, solid, cold facts.

5. Numeracy
• Numbers are a summary of the real world.
• Many numbers often are a guess.
• Many numbers often are an opinion.

6. “Building a Sense of Scale”
• Population of City, County, State and
Country
• Average Household Income
• Size of the U.S. Economy
• City, County and State Budget

7. Numbers v. words
• No more than two or three numbers in a
paragraph.
• No more than one, maybe two,
paragraphs in a row with numbers.
• Dates, time, spelled-out numbers count.
• Memorize common numbers on your beat.
Think is this number up or down, big or
small.

8. Numbers v. words
• Round off – and then maybe round off
some more.
• Learn to convert to simple ratios to keep
your numbers small.
• Always double-check your math answers.
No, better triple-check.

9. Use Devices from Everyday Life
• “About the size of a football field”
• “The equivalent of pouring a teaspoon of
water in a lake.”
• “Three times as high as …….”

10. Numbers v. words
• The editor’s question – Does this number
make sense?
• So … When all the above fails, numbers
belong in graphics – bar charts, tables and
– at last resort – a bulleted break-out
box.

11. Graphics
• Take your graphic artist or graphic
reporter to lunch.
• Do your calculations and bar charts in
Excel, then export to Adobe Illustrator or
Freehand.
• Learn some principles of good graphics to
have quality conversations with your
graphic folks.

12. Resources
• Google “misleading graphs”
http://www.google.com
• Get, read, study, live with Edward Tufte’s
The Visual Display of Quantitative
Information
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

13. More Resources
• Damned Lies and Statistics—Joel Best
• A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper—
John Allen Paulos
• 200% Of Nothing A.K. Dewdney
• Inumeracy—John Allen Paulos
• Math Tools for Journalist—Kathleen Woodruff
Wickham
• How to Lie With Statistics—Darrell Huff

14. Finally …
• Essential: Sarah Cohen’s Numbers in the
Newsroom
http://www.ire.org/store/books/math.html