Not wrong, but confusing as hell

At first glance, one is tempted to go, "Oh, that's why Yahoo can't make its numbers":

Actually, it's not wrong - there are two Nevada jerseys. But if the point is not to confuse the reader at first glance, this one needs a rethink.

HT to Testy Copy Editors.

An editor reads the paper, July 3, 2013

A few other things from the larder:

1) Don't make your readers go backward or connect the dots, even in a photo caption.

Reworked: Gaffney's L.J. Peak, with microphone, announces his intent to play college athletics at Georgetown, while Shaq Davidson will play at USC.  (You can't see the crowd, so why mention it?)


2) Watch the numbers - it's mostly just common sense. Consider this excerpt from a Sunday story:

 Fort Jackson has 3,500 civilian workers, who collectively are paid $51 million annually. The 20 percent furlough for the remainder of the fiscal year means those workers will have $2.55 million less to spend on gas, food, entertainment and other commodities. Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter employs another 1,340 civilian workers with a payroll of $59 million. The furloughs will cost Sumter’s local economy $2.95 million this year.

So how does a military base with 1,300 workers have a larger payroll than one with 3,500? And if you do simple division, it suggests the average per-capita salary at the fort is about $14,500 while at the air base it's $44,000. As you might suspect, the average salaries are about the same, and the Fort Jackson payroll is about $155 million. Don't let big numbers make your eyes glaze over - do simple math to break them down into understandable chunks.

(As of this writing, the wrong information is still online - another data point that too many newsrooms still don't get it - while the story was corrected in the paper this morning. Which one do you think can do more to spread inaccurate information?)

3) And not to pick only on my local paper (really, I love you all), this recent story from WLTX-TV was just a mess:

 More than 100 residents are not sitting well with a house committee decision to pass a controversial animal care bill.

Tuesday dozens of residents packed a agriculture house committee meeting, most in opposition of a bill that would limit nonprofit shelters to provide certain kinds of vaccinations to animals.

The sub-committee voted four-zero; passing the bill to the full board. Some veterinarians say this bill will even the playing field between private practices and non profits.

"It will absolutely hurt the animals. This is the most detrimental thing that could happen," said Deloris Mungo with Palmetto Lifeline.

"It has very broad language that is going to restrict what I am able to do," said Janet McKim.

Critics of the bill say it is poorly written, Janet McKim is a veterinarian at a shelter in Charleston.

 "If I don't treat it I am at risk of malpractice but if I do treat it I can be practicing outside the law, so it puts me at an extraordinarily difficult situation."

Those in support of the bill say that this is to level the playing field. But Mungo said restricting residents to only use vets to get their pets spayed or neutered is not fair.

"I have very good veterinarians but I should have the right to go to a private vet if I want to or go to a low cost spay neuter clinic if I want," Mungo said.

Richland County Representative Kirkman Finlay voted for the bill. He says the bill is needed but they need to bring more people to the table to make a fair compromise.

"Groups that are directly supported by the government that are perceived to be in direct competition with these vets are the crux of the issue. The vets are saying we are paying for our competition to come undercut us in price and that's always an issue," Finlay said.

Those in opposition says private businesses compete with non profits in every venue and they feel that this shouldn't be one that changes.

"We shouldn't be dictated to who is going to do our surgeries and how much we are going to have to pay," Mungo said.

Here's a rework. You can decide:


Dozens of opponents are upset with a South Carolina House subcommittee decision to approve an animal-care bill that would keep shelters from spaying or neutering pets.

People packed a House Agriculture subcommittee meeting Tuesday, most opposing the bill. It would limit nonprofit shelters to providing vaccinations and spaying or neutering services only to lower-income people adopting pets. All others would have to go to a veterinarian.

The subcommittee, on a 4-0 vote, sent the bill to the full Agriculture Committee. Some veterinarians say this bill will even the playing field between private practices and nonprofits, but critics say it is poorly written.

"It will absolutely hurt the animals. This is the most detrimental thing that could happen," said Deloris Mungo with Pawmetto Lifeline in Columbia. Janet Kim, a veterinarian at a Charleston shelter, complained that it has "very broad language that is going to restrict what I am able to do."

"If I don't treat it, I am at risk of malpractice, but if I do treat it, I can be practicing outside the law, so it puts me at an extraordinarily difficult situation," she said.

Mungo says restricting people to using only vets to get their pets spayed or neutered is not fair.

"I have very good veterinarians, but I should have the right to go to a private vet if I want to or go to a low-cost spay-neuter clinic if I want," Mungo said.

Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, voted for the bill but said more people need to be involved in negotiating a compromise.

"Groups that are directly supported by the government that are perceived to be in direct competition with these vets are the crux of the issue. The vets are saying we are paying for our competition to come undercut us in price, and that's always an issue," Finlay said.

Opponents says private businesses and nonprofits compete in many areas.

"We shouldn't be dictated to who is going to do our surgeries and how much we are going to have to pay," Mungo said.
Have a happy Fourth.

AP Style: 'Underway" and numerals

I'm going to take a bow here - AP FINALLY is making two changes I have urged for years. Revealed today at the ACES convention in St. Louis:

underway - Now one word in all uses. Editor-at-Large Darrell Christian says it's to conform to the dictionary. Frankly, AP was being outflanked by even common usage in newspapers. This follows last year's change of "work force" to "workforce."


Numerals - The entry will now be consolidated and expanded in an attempt, as Christian said, to bring things all together and simplify while not sending people hither and yon through the stylebook looking for variations. It will be about four pages long. (David Minthorn noted there were several hundred related possible entries.)

One wrinkle on this - all distances will now be figures. So you no longer need to distinguish between dimensions and distances. The pipe was 3 feet long (dimension) and now he ran 4 miles or the town was 6 square miles.

In a way, however, the AP is complicating things a bit here - why not also take on the duration versus age dichotomy and use all figures there? He is 5 years old -- as it is now -- but why not also he was sentenced to 5 years' probation?

I've urged for some time that the AP simplify its arcane numeral entries. My suggestion was to spell out everything between one and nine unless a dollar sign or something similar preceded it. It works fine for the Wall Street Journal, for instance.

But if the digital -- and especially the mobile -- age requires shortening and figures, I'm fine with that too -- just do it across the board.

And here's another:
Moped: Now one word, not that awkward "mo-ped" that so many ignored anyhow. Did anyone really think that in context people would think it meant wandering around listlessly?

AP's David Minthorn repeatedly says the stylebook is "coming into compliance with the dictionary." So, AP, maybe it's also time to consider changing dictionaries. Webster's New World College 4th (when will we get a 5th - it was supposed to be this spring) is the more conservative -- and, frankly, the most out of step, of the three majors. Merriam-Webster still has its haters as too liberal. So why not American Heritage 5? It has the benefit of much better explanations than Webster's of the reasoning behind lots of its entries.

So will AP also change "gantlet/gauntlet" to favor gauntlet (run the gauntlet) as M-W and AH do?

Numeracy Illiteracy - the headline edition

I suppose I should be grateful that my local paper, The State, gives me such timely material for teaching.

But even though we were discussing numeracy in editing class, the paper didn't have to be this accommodating with this headline today:

Here's the first part of the story:

South Carolina’s $25 billion retirement fund earned a 4 percent return on its investments from July to September, the fund’s chief investment officer told the State Budget and Control Board on Tuesday.

But Hershel Harper said the fund will struggle to make its goal of a 7.5 percent annual return over the next five years. State officials say the fund needs to average that return to stay solvent .... The retirement fund made a 0.37 percent return on its investments last fiscal year, which ended June 30. After paying its expenses , including benefits to retirees and fees, the fund lost $1 billion in value. 

So , no, earnings weren't up 4 percent. The percentage here is not being used as a relative comparison but as an absolute - it's a rate of return.

Had the earnings been "up" 4 percent, that would be 0.37*1.04, or 0.385 percent.

Because the rate of return is an absolute number, the "up" or increase in it would actually be 13,233 percent! ((4/0.37)-1)*100

Think of a thermometer - with the rates of return sot of like the "degrees." If the temperature went from 20 to 50, you wouldn't say "temperature up" 50 degrees. You'd say "temperature reaches 50" or maybe that it rises 30 (or, if you were into headlinese, "temperature up 30".
 So this headline really should be:

Earnings reach 4 percent in quarter

or a little less elegantly

Earnings rise to 4 percent in quarter

This kind of innumeracy isn't good in any case, but in 36-point type it really disappoints.

(The online version avoided the problem.)

Numeracy-challenged editing

It's Labor Day, and the livin' is easy. But that doesn't mean the editing is easy or should be any less vigorous.

So I present two exhibits from my morning paper that should have raised flags. The first is in a story about the challenges of keeping South Carolina's college graduates in the state, and specifically in the Midlands (Columbia area):

   The study shows that Charleston – thought to be desirable to young professionals with its beaches, culture, architecture and history – ranks 30th in the nation with a college-educated workforce of 31.9 percent. Greenville, perhaps surprisingly, is in a tie for 68th in the country, with 26.9 percent of its workforce holding college degrees.

   And the most recent jobs report from the S.C Department of Employment and Workforce shows that Columbia over the past year is leading the state in job creation, many in professional services. Of the 11,300 jobs created in the past year, 9,500 are in the Midlands, while Spartanburg created 6,400 jobs and Charleston grew by 4,500. By contrast, Greenville and Myrtle Beach shed more than 3,000 jobs each.

I've yet to figure out how those numbers add up to 11,300, even being liberal and subtracting 7,000 jobs (3,500 each for Greenville and Myrtle Beach). I'm guessing that the difference is in the rest of the state somehow. But why confuse readers? Perhaps it's best to just leave out the 11,300 figure and just write, "Of the jobs created in South Carolina in the past year, 9,500 are ..."

Then there is this from a story about paving dirt roads in Lexington County*:

  Lexington County Council is struggling to settle the fate of dirt roads where some landowners along the routes refuse to turn over slivers required to improve the country lanes.

  Some council members want to shelve the projects, while others want to relay that threat anew to the holdouts, in hopes they’ll have a change of heart.

  The fuss could lead to changes in the way county officials settle annually on paving a few miles each year of more than 600 miles of dirt roads.**

OK, until you come to these grafs late in the story:

   The list of roads earmarked for paving is developed through a checklist based on factors such as number of residents affected, traffic counts, proximity to schools and length of time a request has been pending.

  More than 300 requests are pending to pave about half of the county’s more than 700 miles of dirt roads.

So which is it, 600 or 700?

Numbers need three things:

• Relevance (they must be the right numbers - I'm amazed at the number of stories I get or read where someone is writing about a local situation and starts with a national or regional number; also, if you are talking about a rate, don't give me just the absolute number.).
• Completeness (it's not a "penny" tax increase, for instance, it's a "penny-on-the-dollar" increase).
• Context (the number has to be properly surrounded by any qualifiers or explainers to make it understandable - somewhat related to the rate vs. absolute number problem)

For all I know, the numbers in both these stories could be rock solid. But here's the thing, rock solid doesn't do any good if they confuse readers. Research has shown that too many journalists think just throwing a number in adds credibility.

But throwing in the wrong number or doing it carelessly can leave readers confused, and that's a credibility (if not, eventually, a circulation) buster.

*For those of you playing along at home, the headline on that roads story is Residents block dirt road paving by refusing to give right-of-ways. AP style is rights of way - no hyphens and "rights" as plural. (The dictionary shows either plural form but lists first the "rights" one.) And while I don't think there's lots of confusion without a hyphen in "dirt road," just flip it for greater clarity: Residents block paving dirt roads by refusing to give rights of way

** Duly noted the sentence also is needlessly redundant: "Each year" and "annually" say the same thing, so drop one.

Missing in plain sight - unemployment story

I have a class section and seminar (that I've done for the American Copy Editors Society) called "missing in plain sight."

I keep coming back to these because with the decimation of copy desks, I'm seeing more cases. So let's see how quickly you can pick out what's missing in this story - and figure out why a copy editor seemingly missed it:

South Carolina’s economy got an early Christmas present on Tuesday, as the unemployment rate dropped under 10 percent for the first time since April. The plunge came as retailers beefed up sales staff for an unexpectedly good holiday shopping season and others dropped out of the job search.

   More strikingly, the drop to 9.9 percent from October to November was the largest monthly drop in the 35 years that statistics have been kept in the state, according to a report from the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce released Tuesday. The national unemployment rate also saw a significant decrease, to 8.6 percent in November from 9 percent in October.

   “This is truly good news for South Carolina, and surprising,” said Doug Wood- ward, an economist with the University of South Carolina. “We’ll take it.”

   Overall, nonfarm employment grew by 15,000 jobs from October to November and is up nearly 31,000 from a year ago – the largest increase for the same time period since 2006.

   Folks found 7,100 jobs in retail and 6,600 in professional and business services. Manufacturing, which has been a bright spot for the state, continued its climb, adding 900 jobs between October and November.

   The retail spike was fueled in part by people believing that the economy both in South Carolina and nationally is on the mend.

   “As the economy begins to rebound, they are less worried about being laid off” and more willing to spend, said USC economist Joey Von Nessen.

   Deedra Senter, co-owner of the Learning Express toy stores in Lexington and Irmo, is seeing that trend first hand. After a flat November, December sales are up 20 percent over last December and she and co-owner Paige Watson had to order additional stock.

   “We’ve had an unexpectedly good holiday season,” Senter said. “There have been some scary times this year.”

   The owners wanted to beef up their staff of 13 but couldn’t find workers with the right experience. So they have their present staff working overtime.

   “Our staff has to be very customer-oriented and experts in toys,” Senter said. “We put ads on Craigslist but had people not show up. It worked out great for our girls because they are getting time and a half.”

   Woodward and Von Nessen earlier this month declared that the state’s economy for 2012 was “looking pretty good” and predicted substantial job growth in the coming year – most in the manufacturing sector. However, in their annual economic outlook, the Darla Moore School of Business economists predicted the unemployment would remain flat as more people entered the workforce and began looking for work in a brightening job market.

   So Tuesday’s report was a surprise.

   “The good news is the major reason (for the drop) has been due to actual employment gains rather than just drops in the labor force,” Von Nessen said.

   Although the labor force did drop by 4,750 from October to November to 2.17 million, meaning some have dropped out of the job search.

   Gov. Nikki Haley and workforce executive director Abraham Turner issued statements praising S.C. businesses for ramping up employment and predicted more gains to come.

   “When we took office, the unemployment rate was 10.5 percent,” Haley said in a release. “To see it drop to 9.9 percent is a good way to end the year. We continue to have challenges, but we are committed to doing all we can to put South Carolinians back to work.”

   Lexington County once again had the lowest unemployment rate in the state, dropping to 7 percent from 7.5 percent. Orangeburg County and Calhoun County were the only two counties in the state to have unemployment rise.

Graphic: UNEMPLOYMENT EASING
   The jobless rate improved dramatically in South Carolina in November, dropping by the largest amount since the state began tracking the rate in 1976, as more people landed jobs. Two counties in the state saw an increase in unemployment, but most improved in November from October:

   Lexington: 7% from 7.5%

   Richland: 8% from 8.8%

   Kershaw: 8.6% from 9.1%

   Newberry: 9.2% from 9.6%

   Fairfield: 10.8% from 11.4%

   Calhoun: 14.1% from 12%

   Orangeburg: 15.6% from 14.9%

   SOURCE: S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce 

Did you ask yourself this: They're making such a big deal of this being the largest month-to-month drop, so what exactly was the unemployment rate last month? (It's not in the story or the graphic.) It was 10.5 percent.

Oops. Not sure why a desk missed that.

(The penultimate graf references that figure, but only from when the governor took office nine months earlier. The rate had actually gone higher than that in the interim - to 10.9 percent in September, for instance.)

Numeracy - a minuscule problem

If you were reading along in The State this past week and came across this story,* you might have spotted a problem:

   If state lawmakers want to retire, they would have to give up their seat in the Legislature, according to a proposal moving through the state House of Representatives.

   The proposal would end the practice of lawmakers retiring but remaining in office and replacing their $10,400 annual salaries with much larger pension benefits - more than $30,000 a year, in some cases.

   State lawmakers are members of a separate - and much smaller - retirement system than state workers. Because of that, any changes to the General Assembly Retirement System would have little affect on the much larger state pension system’s debt of $13 billion.

   But lawmakers hope the change would send a message of shared sacrifice to the nearly 500,000 workers, retirees and other beneficiaries on the S.C. Retirement System. Come January, state workers in that system will be asked to pay more into the retirement accounts only to potentially receive lower benefits once they retire. ...

     State lawmakers still would benefit from a more generous pension formula.

   State workers calculate their annual pension benefits by multiplying their years of service times their average final salary times 0.0182 percent. State lawmakers multiply their salary and years of service times 0.0482 percent, giving them a higher benefit.

   Meanwhile, the proposal to change the retirement system for state employees calls for them to pay 1 percent more into the system - an increase of $408 a year for the average employee - while changing their pension formula, which could result in a lower benefit for some workers.

   The S.C. State Employees Association has agreed to endorse having state workers pay more into the retirement system, but only if lawmakers give state employees at least a 2 percent raise. Carlton Washington, the association’s executive director, called the current proposal, which lacks that guaranteed raise, “shortsighted.” But he said the offer from lawmakers to change their own retirement system could be a good sign to state employees.

   “If that is put on the table first, then that would send somewhat of a positive message to employees that (lawmakers) are at least interested in a comprehensive review,” Washington said. ...

It's a wonder S.C. state workers weren't already stocking up on canned pet food for their retirement. A pension based on "0.0182 percent" (or even the more generous "0.0482 percent" for legislators) would be very slim pickings indeed -- a factor of 0.000182 times the average of their last five years' earnings times the number of years worked. For someone making $50,000 who worked for 30 years, that would be a grand total of $273 a year. It's a case of mixing decimals and percents - the factor is 0.0182, or 1.82 percent - or $27,300 a year for our hypothetical worker.

It's what happens when a reporter tries to change the factor to a percent or vice versa** and forgets to move the decimal -- but a sharp-eyed copy editor should have caught it.

(For bonus points, you might also have caught the affect/effect error in the third paragraph, especially egregious from a copy-editng standpoint because it's used correctly in the headline.)

*The error has been corrected in the online story. Perhaps it was by an eagle-eyed copy editor when the story was posted. But since the affect/effect error is still there, my bet is on a correction made after the error was pointed out but never acknowledged online - a more common occurrence for this publication. The copy above is from the PDF replica edition.

** Don't ask me how I know this was it. Take this one on faith.

Selective use of data

Data is good in journalism. Selective use of data, not so much.

So let's look at the following story from The Nerve, a journalistic endeavor of the S.C. Policy Council. The council is a heavily conservative advocacy organization, but for those critics who would like to dismiss The Nerve's work out of hand as a result, stop.

The reporters, many of whom worked for "established" media, know their stuff and more often than not have uncovered those annoying little tidbits that send politicians into a tizzy. It also has become another media voice documenting and amplofying FOIA violations - can't be enough of those.

Yes, the stuff could use some solid editing from time to time. And it can be a bit shrill - one clearly knows the direction the writers are coming from ("Where Government Gets Exposed" is the site's tagline). But to dismiss it out of hand is ill-advised.

However, there are things like this that bother me because they show selective use of data to put a finger on the fairness scale, so to speak. And yes, I am a USC employee, and no, doesn't matter a twit to me what the subject is. We're talking basic journalism, editing and fairness in presenting data here. So consider the following. My comments and questions, had I edited this, are in brackets and italics:

As College Tuition Rises, So Does Administrators’ Pay

The body of the story bears that headline out at only one school.

By Amit Kumar

We’ve all heard it before: Tuition at South Carolina’s public universities and colleges is rising; state appropriations for higher education are falling; and it’s something that has been going on for years.

There is, however, at least one budgetary commitment that has remained constant or even increased at state institutions of higher education in recent years: total compensation paid to university presidents and vice presidents.

"Remained constant or 'even' increased" - so if it's remained constant, why is it worth mentioning?

The Nerve analyzed total compensation packages for the presidents and vice presidents at the University of South Carolina, Clemson University, and the College of Charleston, the largest undergraduate public universities in the state. The Nerve obtained compensation records by filing S.C. Freedom of Information requests with all three universities.

While tuition at all three public universities has nearly doubled in the past decade, university administrators have been receiving steady compensation packages worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the review found.

OK, so the news is what? If administrators' salaries had been going up, the news is clear. But if their compensation stayed "steady," then doesn't that bolster the idea that the extra money's been going for other purposes (like education and more faculty)? 

 The Nerve’s review also found that, while university administrators often point to decreases in state appropriations as justification for tuition increases, the amounts of federal stimulus dollars each of these three universities received in the past two fiscal years more than offset any cuts in state funding.

More on this in a minute, but hold this question - do stimulus dollars actually replace state appropriations?

For fiscal year 2011-2012, the total compensation package for USC President Harris Pastides is valued at $535,000; for the College of Charleston President George Benson, at $398,987; and for Clemson President James Barker, at $400,000.

Each of those packages is more than 12 times the per capita income in South Carolina, valued at $33,163 in 2010 by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

OK, gives us a bit of context. But is 12 times excessive compared with similar officials in other states (which also have been cutting budgets) or with other S.C. officials? Has that ratio increased or decreased over time - that's a major weakness throughout the story; the real issue is whether there have been increases, and have those been excessive? I know it's hard to feel sympathy for someone making $300K or $400K a year, but as journalists, we're supposed to know when a snapshot can be more misleading than a time series. BTW, check the state salary database, and 17 state employees show up (most from the universities, including the Medical University of South Carolina,  as making more than $300,000, none of them the university presidents because the presidents' actual salaries are much lower).

At USC, the total compensation paid to Pastides each year since fiscal year 2008-2009, his first in the post, has been constant at $535,000. That number includes both money from state government and supplemental private funds from University of South Carolina foundations.

What's the breakdown? Has the public portion of that changed? What relevance does the "private" part of that have to the argument at hand, which seems to be tuition rises but these folks keep dipping from the trough.

A report by The Chronicle On Higher Education, though, found that the median total compensation package for university presidents – including presidents of university systems with multiple campuses, like that of USC – at 185 of the top research institutions in the nation in 2009-2010 was $440,487 – $95,000 lower than Pastides’ package.

Useful to know.

Meanwhile, both in-state and out-of-state tuition for attending USC have more than doubled in the past 10 years, with in-state tuition rising from $5,024 in 2002-2003 to $10,168 in 2011-12. After adjusting for inflation, that figure represents a 61 percent increase in tuition and fees.

A common refrain from universities regarding their yearly tuition hikes is that the increases are necessary because the amount of money the state appropriates to higher education has decreased each year. And this is true: For instance, for the 10-year period from 2001-2002 to 2010-2011, annual state appropriations to USC-Columbia have declined by 45 percent, from $183.7 million to $101 million, according to the most recent report by the S.C. Commission on Higher Education.

However, for the past two completed fiscal years, state universities have received federal stimulus dollars as a response to the recession. While those stimulus funds, which are non-recurring, have more than offset year-to-year reductions in state appropriations, universities have still elected to raise tuition in those years.

OK, back to the original question - are stimulus funds the same as state funds? I don't know, but the journalist could have helped me out as a reader. Many federal funds come with restrictions, as opposed to the state's "general fund" dollars. If the fed money is not a perfect substitute, is the argument here that the fed money used for purpose "x," should have then freed up the same amount of state money for other uses, thus negating or lessening the need for a tuition increase? Would have been nice to explain.

 For example, in fiscal year 2009-2010, state recurring appropriations to the entire USC system declined by $20.5 million; that same year USC received $29.2 million in federal stimulus dollars, more than offsetting the loss in state dollars. Still, USC increased tuition by 3.6 percent for in-state and out-of-state students in 2009-2010.

Similarly, at the College of Charleston, President George Benson’s compensation has not increased since he first took the top position in 2007-2008. However, the compensation packages for five of the college’s six vice presidents have increased since 2006-2007, including three packages that have increased by more than 14 percent each after adjusting for inflation.

OK, so the story vis a vis Benson is? The five VPs is interesting. But why does the story report only VP increases for College of Charleston? What about Clemson, USC, etc.? (Note: Clemson's data comes at end - would be useful if these were grouped if the point was that VPs overall were getting raises.)

For instance, the compensation package for George Watt, the college’s executive vice president of institutional advancement, has increased by $62,687, or 20.1 percent after adjusting for inflation, since 2008-2009 – right at the height of the recession.

Sounds not so good. But what does a VP of institutional advancement do? As a reader, helps me decide whether it's reasonable.

 In the past 10 years, in-state tuition at the College of Charleston has increased from $4,858 in 2002-2003 to $9,616 in 2011-2012, or by 57 percent after adjusting for inflation. Out-of-state tuition has increased even more, by 76 percent after adjusting for inflation, or $13,356 more per year.

College of Charleston, like USC, repeatedly justifies tuition increases at least partially because of lowered state appropriations. But although the amount of general funds appropriated to public universities has decreased significantly in recent years, general funds make up only a small portion of a university’s overall budget.

For fiscal 2011-12, general funds made up only 9 percent of the College of Charleston’s overall budget. For USC, that number was 11 percent; for Clemson University, general funds were only 8 percent of its overall budget.

Perhaps it is too obvious to note that one of the reasons general funds make up "only" (a loaded word) a small part of the budgets is because the state appropriations have been cut so much? Again, trend data useful for me as a reader to determine context.

 The bulk of these universities’ budgets actually comes from other funds, which are made up of tuition and fees. Of the College of Charleston’s $220 million budget, $183.5 million, or 83 percent of the overall budget, comes from other funds. At USC, $641.8 million out of its $907.2 million budget, or 71 percent, comes from other funds; at Clemson, other funds make up $650.6 million out its $805.4 million budget, or 81 percent.

And, again, that large proportion would be a direct result of state funding being cut, right?

Universities are crying out that they need to increase tuition because their state appropriations are dwindling; but those appropriations make up only about 10 percent of their overall budgets, and cuts to those funds have been offset by federal stimulus dollars in recent years.

So synthesizing my comments: This is a collection of random facts that when put in the same graf sounds sinister but fails to answer whether stimulus dollars can be directly substitutable for state appropriations and how much state money as a proportion of the schools' budget has changed. The implied argument seems to hinge on "only," but the "only" might well be the result of state cuts, especially if the federal money is not a one-for-one replacement  - seems a bit tautological, eh?

All these same financial trends are visible at Clemson, where in-state tuition has increased by 67 percent and out-of-state tuition by 75 percent in the past 10 years after adjusting for inflation.

In that same time, Clemson President James Barker has seen his compensation package increase by $120,986, from $279,014 to $400,000 – a raise of 14 percent after adjusting for inflation.

OK, that's useful.

Some of Clemson’s vice presidents have received large compensation increases in the past decade as well, even when adjusting for inflation.

In the past 10 years, the compensation package for Doris Helms, Clemson’s vice president for academic affairs and provost, has increased by 28 percent, to $270,389 today. The package for John Kelly, vice president for agriculture, public service, and economic development, has increased by 19 percent after, to $242,732 today; and for Neill Cameron, vice president for advancement, by 15.5 percent, to $211,185 today.

OK, that's useful. So Clemson raises some flags. But when did those raises happen? Isn't it possible the bulk were before the 2008 recession? Help me out as a reader to evaluate the information. It's far more significant if they've continued getting raises even after the economy tanked.

And why don't we hear about the VPs at the other institutions - USC? So at two out of three schools, there weren't significant VP raises? But not at the largest? And how do they relate? That's cherry-picking data.


Bottom line: Might be a story here. Take your pick based on your policy/political/fiscal orientation:

• Tuition's gone up even though the schools' financial picture shouldn't have changed because federal stimulus dollars were exactly substitutable for the state money that was cut. (Nothing in the story says that about the fed dollars; we are left to artfully conclude it.) Ergo, any tuition increase somehow is tied to the pay, although how is that possible when the pay remained steady for the presidents of two schools and we have no data in the story showing significant increases for underlings at one of those the three schools (besides Clemson)?
•  University officials' pay has continued to rise even while the economy has gone to crap. (Unfortunately, the data we have right now shows that's the case at "only" one of three, and even then it's not clear when the increases took place.)
• State appropriations were cut and the stimulus dollars that came in could not directly replace them. So tuition was raised, in part to cover the salaries plus any increases in those salaries over the past decade. That was wrong, since the stimulus money could have freed up other funds that could have been transferred back to other lines to cover/offset the salaries. The implication is that those top officials should somehow have refunded parts of their salaries to cover that (unspecified) part of the tuition increase.

One of these might have been true. But this story, as a "random walk" through data, doesn't support any of them. If the stimulus was not a dollar-for-dollar replacement, you could also debate things like whether the money was effectively spent, whether the universities should have added positions at such a time, did the universities properly transfer money among lines to account for the stimulus, etc.? But that's a different story than what's here.

Bottom line - numbers don't make a story credible by themselves. Careful, clear numbers with accuracy, completeness and context - and the assumptions clearly spelled out - do.

Reporter resources - Cool site: StatSpotting

Just came across StatSpotting, an intriguing site that scrapes the Web for some of the most intriguing statistics of the day.

Nothing I'd take to the bank, especially given the gauzy nature of who's behind it,* but certainly a place that seems useful to find out what kind of stats are bouncing around online for possible story ideas.

For instance, here's what's being featured today:

I've added the RSS feed to my reader.

----

*The site says it's run by "NP Labs," but that goes to a dead link. Its "whois" lists an outfit in Bangalore called Numbers Plus, but that site is just a GoDaddy container. So as with all things Web, caveat emptor, but then again you should just be using this for ideas anyhow, right?

Dear AP: check those thermometers

AP apparently has a little confusion going with Fahrenheit and Celsius - or a massive case of hyperbole:

Thanks for the tip from a former student who pointed to the original criticism on Newsbusters.

Joe Wilson's finances - a case of shoddy journalism

What would you think if you saw this headline?

Report finds congressman in debt

Does it sound to you like he is in over his head? I'm betting a fair number of people would, and that's just the beginning of the problems I see with a story today on Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.. - he of the "You lie" remark fame - and his finances. It was published in the Greenville News (pay wall) and reprinted in my local paper, The State (where I can't find it online except in the subscription required e-edition).

(In disclosure let me say I know Wilson in passing from Boy Scouts. I've never voted for the man and generally don't agree with his positions. But that doesn't mean he should be the target of slipshod journalism.)

Here are the relevant parts (the bulk of the story is reprinted here for educational uses since it cannot be easily linked to):

WASHINGTON — A state Republican congressman who has accused the Obama administration of being fiscally irresponsible owed between $165,000 and $325,000 in loans and credit-card debt last year.
    U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of Spring-dale reported the debts on his recently released personal financial disclosure statements for 2010.
    Congressional lawmakers are required to file the statements each year. The statements report assets in broad ranges and are not required to include a lawmaker’s primary residence. Wilson’s statement shows he owed between $165,000 and $325,000 in six personal loans, one home-equity loan, and credit card debt.
    Wilson reported total liabilities between $765,000 and $1.57 million. That includes two mortgages — each worth between $250,000 and $500,000 – for properties in Washington and Sapphire, N.C., and a mortgage worth between $100,000 and $250,000 for property in Springdale.
    Wilson’s report shows “he is almost certainly under some (financial) pressure,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington.
    “This report raises more questions than it answers,” she said.
    Lawmakers are required to disclose personal debts of at least $10,000, Krumholz said.
    Wilson did not respond to requests for more details about his finances. …
    Like other House Republicans, Wilson has criticized the Obama administration for “job-killing” economic policies, and has urged spending cuts and fiscal restraint.
    On June 22, he delivered a floor speech accusing the administration of “spending and borrowing money at a reckless rate.”
    Wilson reported assets worth between $1.2 million and $2.68 million. Most of that is real estate and a timeshare on Hilton Head Island.
    The asset and liability ranges in his report show Wilson was worth approximately $386,000 to $796,000 last year, according to Jock Friedly, founder of LegiStorm, a website that posts financial disclosure records, congressional salary data and other fiscal information.
    That range does not include the value of Wilson’s primary residence.
    Analysts say it’s unusual for members of Congress to report significant debt. ...
    Wilson appears to rank “somewhere in the middle of the pack in Congress in terms of net asset levels,” Friedly wrote in an email. …
    Their annual salaries – $174,000 for non-leadership members of Congress like Wilson – are not included on the reports.
    Wilson reported extra income of nearly $39,000 last year in pension payments from the South Carolina state retirement system, the National Guard and the U.S. military, according to his records.
    Additionally, he earned between $5,000 and $15,000 in rent from his property in Springdale, his report shows.

The story invites one to read between the lines and come to a conclusion that isn't necessarily there - that somehow he's being a bit hypocritical by taking on six-figure short term debt and up to seven figures in overall debt.

The article spends the first 12 grafs suggesting how irresponsible Wilson might be without ever telling us about his assets or cash flow, let alone doing even a rudimentary analysis. That's left to the bottom of the article and mostly for the reader to suss out.

Whether he's accused the administration of being fiscally irresponsible or the best thing since sliced bread has little to do with outstanding short-term loans and credit card debt of between $165,000 and $325,000. It has everything to do with whether he can carry that debt.

One of the first suggestions it may not be a problems is that Wilson's disclosure (available at http://www.legistorm.com/) shows one personal loan as far back as 1999, three others in 2006 and one last year. The home equity was in December 2007. That doesn't suggest panic borrowing to cover other shortfalls (which might indicate irresponsibility), but a measured flow of financing. Two of the mortgages were in December 2004 and one in December 2007.

There is no indication any are in trouble.

It's not even unusual in some cases to have current liabilities exceed cash flow if you can convert some assets to tide you over. As a college instructor, my finances, from the outside, look like a disaster every May to August. Cash flow is far less than current liabilities. But during the "regular season" I squirrel away money in investments that then are slowly converted to cash during the summer.

I've even gone entire years in the "red" while doing house remodeling, but it was hardly irresponsible, as I knew the liquid assets and eventual cash flow were there.

So, yes, as Krumholz said, Wilson might be under some pressure. But is it unreasonable pressure? Is it irresponsible?

Friedly estimates Wilson's net worth at  $386,000 to $796,000. (If you just do a raw assets-minus-liabilities analysis, Wilson could be $323,000 in the hole or $1.9 million in the black).
Using Friedly's numbers, even if Wilson had to pay off everything today, he'd still have assets left. If you looked at a business in that light, you might consider it a worthy investment.

With much of Wilson's wealth in real estate, there could be some liquidity problems, and the net at a forced sale could be less than what is listed. So maybe there is some pressure, but net worth is just one screen, and a bunt one.

Let's look at income and current liabilities.

The article lists his income at from $218,000 to $228,000 - his $174,000 congressional salary, his $39,000 in pension payments, and $5,001 to $15,000 in rental income. The writer does not explain why he lists that income but leaves out from $45,000 to $145,000 in "unearned" rental income listed from the "Moseley and Wilson" partnership that owns a number of properties.

But to be conservative, we'll take the $218,000 and then apply a 0.75 factor to allow for taxes, etc., leaving us with $163,500.

As to the debt, we can only estimate because of the ranges involved. Wilson and his spokesman did themselves no favors by not answering questions

Let's take the $325,000 as short term debt (personal loans and credit card along with the home equity loan, though that could as easily be long term). The credit card is included because we don't know if he's paying that off, so we'll assume the worst.

We'll go with the maximum $1.25 million for long term.

We have to guess on the rates and durations. For short term, let's start with a rate of 10% and an eight-year term. One loan already goes back to 1999, and several others are at the eight-year mark now. If you take the potentially onerous cost of credit card debt versus the lower cost of personal loans, a blended 10% seems reasonable.

For long term, we'll be really conservative and say 15 years at 6.5 percent.

What we get (all figures are for the year):
Short term (8 years, 10%), current portion due $59,184
Long term (15 years, 6.5%), current portion due $130,666
Total: $189,850, or a shortfall against income ($163,500) of $26,350.

That would indicate some pressure, but perhaps none at all if the partnership income were included and much less if we even took more than $5,000 of that rental income range that the article dos include.

(You can try these calculations yourself at http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/loan-calculator.aspx)

But there are wide variations with just some small adjustments in amount, term or rate. Leaving the short- and long-term maximums, but varying the interest and duration for the short term to eight years and 5% narrows the gap to $16,546. Some others:

10 years, 10% = $18,706 gap
10 years, 5% = $8,542 gap

Just to show how sensitive this is, however, let's take the mean short-term indebtedness of $245,000 (again,  leaving the current portion of long-term debt at $130,666).

8 years, 10% = $11,782 gap
8 years, 5% = $4,390 gap
10 years, 10% = $6,022 gap
10 years, 5% = $1,646 to the good

None of these gaps is particularly onerous if the assets can be converted to cover. But if we then adjust the long-term debt by increasing the maturity to 20 years, that payment drops by more than $18,000 a year, and almost all the scenarios are in the black.(Make it a 30-year loan and the payment drops by almost $36,000 a year, moving about everything into the black.)

If we lower the long-term indebtedness to the $1.17 million mean of the range, the total per year for that portion drops to $122,292 at 15 years, $104,676 at 20 and $88,752 at 30.

The last problem in the article is any lack of a longitudinal perspective. In fact, Wilson's worst-case asset-liability gap has dropped from $978,000 in the 2008 report to $323,000 last year. His best case situation went from a $1.15 million surplus in 2008 to more than  $1.9 million in the most recent report.

I don't expect a long analysis like this in the paper. But we are entitled to something more than trying to make false associations on limited data. The reporting could have been better, but the editing was far short of the mark, especially the headline (in The State).

Numeracy from the mouths of ...

Sometimes former students just warm the cockles of your heart:

S.C.'s higher ed kerfuffle: Questioning the numbers

South Carolina's governor and its colleges and universities are jousting about rising tuition, building projects, etc.

(Disclosure, if you hadn't  noticed, I am employed by the University of South Carolina, but nothing here should be construed as having anything to do with its views, policies, etc. If it did, I would be very suspect of my sanity as a journalist and journalism professor. This is written as a teaching lesson for young journalists, nothing more.)

Some state legislators and Gov. Mark Sanford have defined the issue as one linking tuition increases to new buildings. It's a perfect political straw man because a) parents and students are rightly annoyed, angry even, about rising tuition (I know, I just finished putting two through college) and b) the state's colleges always are in various stages of construction and repair, so it's easy to point to things like a $14,000 fountain repair and go "Ah ha! Told you so."

Futher, it allows the pols to argue for a largely symbolic victory (even if the schools agree to limit tuition, it is not directly linked to construction), and it paints the schools into a corner because now they are forced to argue a negative - that construction and tuition are not linked and that the reality is that large cuts in state support are responsible for tuition increases. As anyone in PR will tell you, having to argue a negative is not generally a winning hand.

(Again, a note - I am not endorsing USC's argument. Take it with a grain of salt as you would Sanford et al.'s, evaluate and come to your own conclusions.)

Sanford has now maneuvered school officials into having to appear at a statewide "higher education summit" this coming week. It should be interesting theater all around.

Lies, damned lies and ...
In advance of that, Sanford has turned "mythbuster," and in his latest release there is a lesson for journalists to not only do the math themselves but consider on their own what story the numbers tell.

Sanford's position, roughly summarized (and for expediency let's just take the numbers he presents at face value with no research, though as a journalist I would be trying to check them were I covering this) is that each out-of-state student costs the university $9,000 in subsidy to educate ($31,000 cost less $22,000 tuition) while, somehow, the state-funded subsidy for in-state students is only $10,000. Let me let his press office lay it out for you:

Out-of-state enrollment at USC between 1999 and 2008 increased 105 percent while in-state enrollment grew less than nine percent. Looking statewide, the out-of-state student population grew from 24.6 percent in 1999 to 28.2 percent in 2008, while states like Florida have cut their out-of-state populations almost in half over that same time frame.

• In 2008, Clemson and USC spent on average $31,000 on out-of-state student’s [should be students' or each .... student's, but who's copy editing, right?] education annually, but out-of-state tuition as these two schools only averaged close to $22,000. South Carolina taxpayers were forced to make up the difference.
• At USC and Clemson in 2008, South Carolina taxpayers subsidized out-of-state students to the tune of around $9,000 per year, per student - meaning that South Carolina taxpayers are effectively handing out-of-state students a $40,000 check for their South Carolina education. 
• In 2008, USC and Clemson had a combined out-of-state enrollment of 10,778 students. Given the $9,000 annual subsidy for out-of-state students, that means South Carolina taxpayers shell out $97 million every year to help non-South Carolinians attend South Carolina schools.
• South Carolina’s in-state tuition at its largest public universities remains 145 percent higher than Florida, 80 percent higher than North Carolina and 60 percent higher than Georgia.

“This massive influx of out-of-state students does not, as some would argue, lower costs for South Carolina students to attend South Carolina colleges,” Gov. Mark Sanford. “Instead, it forces South Carolina taxpayers to actually subsidize out-of-state students’ education, while in many cases making it that much harder for South Carolina families to send their children to South Carolina schools, even if their parents and grandparents are alumni. This is simply unfair, unfortunate and frankly unknown by many taxpayers across South Carolina.”

“Compare this roughly $40,000 subsidy South Carolina taxpayers give to out-of-state students to the much-heralded HOPE scholarships - roughly $2,500 annually - meant to help South Carolina students get a college education in-state. HOPE scholarships provide around $10,000 in aid to in-state students over the average collegiate career - only one-fourth of the taxpayer subsidy lavished on out-of-state students.

“This raises the question: why would South Carolina taxpayers be subsidizing out-of-state students’ education to a greater degree than South Carolina’s own students?

Every numerical argument relies on an assumption. That's a key point that journalists too often miss. What is the assumption here? It's that it costs $31,000 to educate an out-of-state student but, apparently, something less to educate an in-state student. Now stop and ask yourself - does that make sense?

I'd contend it does not. So, if an out-of-state student is paying about $25,000 a year in tuition (that's the actual USC figure - making the subsidy using Sanford's cost figures about $6,000 not $9,000 at that school), and an in-state student pays about $9,400, isn't the effective "subsidy" for the in-state student $31,000-$9,400, or $21,600? Add to that the $2,500 Hope scholarship the governor touts, and wouldn't the effective state subsidy for an in-state student be more than $24,000 for the first year, versus $6,000 for the out-of-state student, and $21,600 after that? (The Hope is available only to first-year students (PDF), so, presumably unless the student got some other kind of state-funded aid after that, he or she would pay the $2,500 additional in the sophomore through senior years).

Now, there are some assumptions of my own here, of course. Most notable is that state support makes up the full deficit for each student. Look at the state subsidy for higher ed, however, and it would seem that other sources are needed. And clearly many students get financial aid that does not come from the state. But I see nothing to indicate those other sources are skewed more toward either classification of student.

So, if the reality is that both are loss leaders, but out-of-state students are actually less so, doesn't enrolling more out-of-state students actually help keep the subsidies down?

At that point, this doesn't turn into a numbers argument, but a political and philosophical one, and journalists should see it for what it is because it raises questions different from whose numbers are right:

• If in-state and out-of-state students both incur "losses" for the institution, what is the right balance of in-state and out-of-state students?
• Is there some kind of underlying philosophical assumption that out-of-state students should cover all their costs? Is that realistic when compared with other states? When compared with higher ed as we generally have practiced it in this country? And if not, is it time for that  change? (Never rule out the benefits and pitfalls of such change - just recognize, as journalists, what they are and explain them to readers.)
• Are some of the politicians angry because parents have complained that Bubba and Bubbette couldn't get into USC or Clemson (what I have heard some students actually declare were their "safe" schools)?
• What should be the true relationship between state support, tuition and enrollment?
• And if out-of-state students coming to South Carolina are a problem, shouldn't we then be honest and declare all S.C. students going out of state to be leeches, too? In fact, if you want to put it in stark economic terms, as Sanford does, and having reworked those numbers, would it not actually benefit the state to get as many students going to other states' schools as possible and get as many in-state students here? 

But those are tough questions - much tougher than throwing around some suspect numbers. They require everyone - politicians, education leaders, students, parents, journalists and the rest of  us - to actually sit down and have some hard, deep thought.

When I started writing this, USC did not have a point-by-point response. It now does. Unfortunately, it does not address the true cost of education per student and whether there is a significant difference between in-state and out-of-state students. And if there isn't, it really doesn't matter much what the figure is (unless out-of-state students actually make the U money) because we are talking orders of magnitude here.

(Having looked at USC's site, I'm not sure it does itself any favors with how things are presented. For instance, there is this:

USC Columbia's total state appropriations were $188,308,819 in 2008.  Total fall 2007 headcount enrollment, was 27,272. Of that enrollment 19,288 were resident South Carolinians. This would indicate that for each resident student, USC received $9,763 in state funding.  If the state were in fact writing a check to USC for the non-resident enrollments, the appropriation would be an additional $71,856,000.

 That, of course, requires one to assume state money goes only to subsidize state students. Now, one might fairly conclude that is Sanford's argument, but I'm not sure it totally is. And even if it were, the university should clearly state that is the assumption on which it is operating. It also assumes that the higher figure, when the math is done only on in-state residents, would remain the effective state subsidy. But the actual state subsidy, taking all students into account, is about $6,905, and nothing says that wouldn't be the figure the university would end up with, even if it enrolled nothing but in-state students. By the way, I get $77.9 million, not $71.9 million, when I do the math [27272-19288]*9763, or 7894*9763. There's also that 2007 vs. 2008 anomaly, which the school could make clearer by explaining that "2008" apparently refers to fiscal 2008, which ran from July 1 2007, to June 30, 2008. But, of course, if you read it closely, there are lots of code and assumptions here, leading one to believe this site really isn't for "the public." It's for policy makers who already know this stuff.)


The danger for journalists is that they get caught up in the fog of numbers and fail to cut through that fog and recognize the issues for what they are.

Numbers rarely actually lie unless we let them. Instead, they tell a story about who is issuing them, and the journalist's true job is to figure out those stories and tell them for what they are.

Money as a compound adjective

There are times I look at the answers on AP's Ask the Editor section and just kind of wonder ...

Here's a recent exchange:

Q. 10,000-euro project or 10,000 euro project? from Evanston, IL
A. 10,000 euros project.

OK, for years and years and years, the standard American English formation has been that when you put the money amount in front of what you are modifying you drop the "s" and add a hyphen. "A cigar costing 5 cents" becomes "a 5-cent cigar."

So, pray tell, why would this not be a "10,000-euro project"? I'm sorry, but that's what I'm teaching my editing students until someone shows me conclusively why it should be different.

(One recent form of this has been in regards to South Carolina's cigarette tax, which at least one paper refers to as a 50-cents-a-pack raise. I can almost see that one's logic, the "cents" modifying the "a pack," though I would still contend the idiomatically accepted form is 50-cent-a-pack raise.)

Number silliness

Came across this today in an AP story by Harry Weber about BP station owners angry at the company and demanding discounts in gas to make up for what they say are customers boycotting because of the oil spill:

In recent weeks, some station owners from Georgia and Illinois say sales have declined as much as 10 percent to 40 percent.

That's just silly wording that I see too often. "As much as" defines the outer limit, and with a range where the difference is a factor of four (10 to 40), it's pointless to say it could be as much as 10 to 40. Sales have declined "as much as 40 percent" or "sales have declined 10 to 40 percent" (no need under AP style to repeat "percent" anymore).

In cases where the range is tight -- something like "sales have declined as much as 35 to 40 percent" -- it might make sense. Otherwise, no need to double up on the weasel words. Simply listing the range or using "as much as" and the outer limit, depending on the precision you want to show, is enough.

Journalists and numbers

One of the best quotes of the week is from Gary Langer, ABC's polling director, interviewed on "On the Media."

The topic: How reporters too often dropped the ball with all the health care polls.

The quote: The news media have long indulged themselves in the lazy luxury of being both data hungry and math phobic.

Time to stop living the lie, folks.

Those pesky directions

Fev, at Heads Up the Blog, spotlighted a wee little error in the NYT in an article on the reunion of the crew and passengers who were aboard the USAir flight that ditched into the Hudson River a year ago.

Forty degrees 46 minutes 10.19 seconds north latitude, 74 degrees 16.69 seconds south latitude: Michael Leonard had been there before.

Oops, as the Times' corrections column later noted.

An article on Saturday about a reunion of the passengers and crew aboard the US Airways jet that crash-landed onto the Hudson River a year ago misstated the location of the crash and the event that occurred 90 seconds into the flight. The crash was at 40 degrees 46 minutes 10.19 seconds north latitude, and 74 degrees 16.69 seconds west longitude — not south latitude. It was the intake of geese by the plane’s engines that took place at the 90-second mark, not the crash itself.

Problem is, it's not just enough to acknowledge the correction, you have to correct the correction correctly too (just follow along now ...). Look closely:



Yep. Now it's "west latitude."

Is there a Boy Scout with a compass anywhere near the Times' HQ? If so, be a good lad and do a good deed by dropping in and helping out the folks, will ya?

"15 items or less"? It's OK, Al, really.

This video from Weird Al Yankovic is making the rounds and being praised in places like the Linked In Editors and Writers forum.




But you know what, Al's poking fun, methinks, not at the less/fewer conundrum but at those who would get all upset over it because you know what -- "xx items or less" is not wrong.

In this case, the phrase serves as an inflection point, really a binary condition, not a count situation. Listen to Wendalynn Nichols' podcast on this ill-advised rule (go to Stupid Rules 11 of Oct. 12). Or you can read it at her Copyediting tip of the week.

There is a lengthy discussion there of "continuous" vs. "discrete," but I side with Nichols on this. Garner, on the other hand, refers to the "linguistic hegemony by which less has encroached on fewer's territory" and concludes it is, indeed, the result of the checkout line kerfuffle, though he notes that "the occasional more literate supermarket owner uses a different sign" with fewer.

But then, in regard to percentages, he goes on to advocate "less," advancing the idea akin to continuity - that most percentages aren't whole numbers anyhow - and concludes: "And even if it were a toss-up between the two theories, it's sound to choose less, which is less formal in tone than fewer." I'd say the same idiomatic argument can be made at the checkout.

Now, let's open another sore point: Plastic or paper ...?

Numeracy: Perils of rounding

Over at The Slot, Bill Walsh has some good advice on not overdoing it when it comes to rounding numbers.

That old numeracy bugaboo

We just keep stumbling over this one.

Look at this headline about Google's archives from the International Newsmedia Marketing Association's weekly news summary:


Now, look at the story it links back to:


It's worth repeating: "Quadruple" does not mean 400 percent growth. It means 300 percent growth. Put another way, while something may be four times as large (or 400 percent of what it was) it is three times (or 300 percent) larger.