Thursday 1 May 2014

FOXFix

This is why I hate them. This is why I always introduced my GCSE stats lessons as "lessons in lying". This is why I'm going back to statistics teaching (undergraduate level this time) full time in September.

FOX News:


Correct graph:

Note that they didn't just invert the y-axis.  Any fool can do that.  Note that they rearranged the x-axis to put events out of chronological order.  That's some high level bullshitting right there. 

(Important note: just because I've corrected this doesn't mean I think the correct graph is actually particularly useful; I don't.  But at least the information is honestly displayed.)

Update: forgot to h/t JJ and There's Coffee In That Nebula. My apologies, folks!

Update 2: Clay points out in comments quite persuasively that it's a fake, though a fake based on screenshots from another spectacularly bad FOX graphic.  Clearly I should have checked thoroughly before throwing this up.  We regret the error.

1 comment:

Clay said...

Thankfully, this is almost certainly a fake. It has the exact same ticker as the misleading Obamacare enrollment graph from a month or two ago.

Compare ticker here with the one from back then:
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/03/31/dishonest-fox-charts-obamacare-enrollment-editi/198679