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The Straight Story

(48,121 posts) Thu Nov 29, 2012, 09:47 AM Nov 2012

EXPOSED: Here Are The Tricks That Fox News Uses To Manipulate Statistics On Its Graphics

EXPOSED: Here Are The Tricks That Fox News Uses To Manipulate Statistics On Its Graphics

Jeff Leek at Simply Statistics has a great post that explains how Fox News presents data in a really tricky way.

A lot of the issue comes in the way the data is presented. While most of the time the data is grounded in fact, by skewing the axes, using the wrong kind of chart, or just changing where the points should be on the graph, Fox is able to change the way that the information is interpreted.

As one example (many more at the link), Leek points out this pie chart. When you add up the numbers, it exceeds 100 percent, making a pie chart a poor choice.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-charts-tricks-data-2012-11#ixzz2DcS5QCgS

3 replies

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EXPOSED: Here Are The Tricks That Fox News Uses To Manipulate Statistics On Its Graphics (Original Post) The Straight Story Nov 2012 OP

those are deliberately misleading d_r Nov 2012 #1

Yes AgingAmerican Nov 2012 #2

when i took a statistics class in college the first thing the prof did was make us read a little dembotoz Nov 2012 #3

d_r

(6,907 posts)

1. those are deliberately misleading

Reply to The Straight Story (Original post)

Thu Nov 29, 2012, 09:54 AM

Nov 2012

it is not accidental or unintentional. That makes it propaganda doesn't it.

AgingAmerican

(12,958 posts)

2. Yes

Reply to d_r (Reply #1)

Thu Nov 29, 2012, 10:01 AM

Nov 2012

When Ronald Reagan was president, they had to make cartoons of different sized mushroom clouds so he could grasp the difference in megatonnage between nuclear weapons. This is how 'conservatives' think.

Simpletons

dembotoz

(16,808 posts)

3. when i took a statistics class in college the first thing the prof did was make us read a little