How Science Journalists Verify Numbers and Statistics in News Stories

Towards a Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID12909760
AuthorsAnthony Van Witsen (0000-0002-3973-8331, Alma College, corresponding author), Bruno Takahashi (0000-0002-8570-4925, Michigan State University)
Year2021
Volume19
Issue6
Pages1400-1419
Publication date2021-07-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournalism Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17512786.2021.1947152
OpenAlexW3181706857
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited55

Despite repeated investigations showing that routine news coverage involving statistics leaves much to be desired, scholarship has failed to produce an adequate theoretical understanding of how statistics are employed in journalism. Earlier research showed many journalists think anything counted or measured and expressed in numbers represents a form of unarguable truth, which may affect whether they think statistical information should be checked or verified. This study examines the verification process in detail through an item-by-item examination of how a sample of journalists verified each statistic in a sample of stories. Complicating earlier discoveries, it found the subjects did not have a single standard for verification. The complexity and uncertainties of the news production process led them to follow a range of practices from simple reliance on authority to careful examination of the methods behind a quantified fact claim

Journalism · Media studies · Political science · Sample (material · Scholarship · Sociology · Statistic · Statistics · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Computational and Text Analysis Methods · Computer Science · Law · Mathematics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology

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