1. “ Writing The Numbers” Tom Johnson Institute for Analytic Journalism Santa Fe, New Mexico t o m @ j t j o h n s o n . c o m
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11. Is there an editor in the house? Source: http://www. nytimes .com/2010/06/20/us/20crime.html? scp =1&sq= arizona %20crime%20statistics& st = cse “ For instance, statistics show that even as Arizona’s population swelled, buoyed in part by illegal immigrants funneling across the border, violent crime rates declined, to 447 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2008, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available from the F.B.I. In 2000, the rate was 532 incidents per 100,000.”
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15. But then comes the correction Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/us/20crime.html?scp=1&sq=arizona%20crime%20statistics&st=cse “ For instance, statistics show that even as Arizona’s population swelled, buoyed in part by illegal immigrants funneling across the border, violent crime rates declined, to 447 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2008, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available from the F.B.I. In 2000, the rate was 532 incidents per 100,000.” REWRITE … declined from 532 incidents per 100,000 in 2000 to 447 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2008.
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Editor's Notes
Barbara’s Directive: What teaching techniques and strategies have proved successful in getting math-phobic students to think quantitatively?
An example of how quant thinking/analysis could be helpful in writing a story about this list, which would SEEM to be QUALITATIVE. http://www.kk.org/cooltools/the-best-magazi.php Get entries in DB or spreadsheet. Do sorts looking for most-mentioned author(s), publication(s), subject(s). Create timeline of these?
Always give thought to using charts, graphs and MAPS in Analytic stage to understand relationships and, possibly to add to the telling of the story Tip for bar charts: array by quantity first, NOT alphabetically. If you want emphasis, then perhaps boldface country or state or use some other color to pop out. Maps contain more information per square inch than anything in text
DO NOT use NYT style. i.e. start with the oldest and flow to the most recent. Don't make the reader backtrack to try to understand the numbers.
All of these are from the same story. Also, note that the percent of change can be estimated by dropping the two rightmost digits, subtracting to get the difference and then “estimate” the percent of change.
For instance, statistics show that even as Arizona’s population swelled, buoyed in part by illegal immigrants funneling across the border, violent crime rates declined, to 447 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2008, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available from the F.B.I. In 2000, the rate was 532 incidents per 100,000. Nationally, the crime rate declined to 455 incidents per 100,000 people, from 507 in 2000. But the rate for property crime, the kind that people may experience most often, increased in the state, to 4,082 per 100,000 residents in 2008 from 3,682 in 2000. Preliminary data for 2009 suggests that this rate may also be falling in the state’s biggest cities.
For instance, statistics show that even as Arizona’s population swelled, buoyed in part by illegal immigrants funneling across the border, violent crime rates declined, to 447 incidents per 100,000 residents in 2008, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available from the F.B.I. In 2000, the rate was 532 incidents per 100,000. Nationally, the crime rate declined to 455 incidents per 100,000 people, from 507 in 2000. But the rate for property crime, the kind that people may experience most often, increased in the state, to 4,082 per 100,000 residents in 2008 from 3,682 in 2000. Preliminary data for 2009 suggests that this rate may also be falling in the state’s biggest cities.
Calculating Rates: e.g. 2,000 murders / 7,300,000 population = .0002739 * 100,000 Murder rate p/100,000 = 27.39
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