Farm math is a wonderful thing. It may not be correct to the sixth decimal, but it does paint a picture. Alas, as readers are now aware, some journalists are known to have chosen their profession because math isn’t the vocation for them.
Last week, we published a Page 7 graphic on the case for growing lentils instead of wheat, which many farmers are considering this year.
The idea was to show that a quarter section of wheat would fill more than four super B trucks, which would have a total gross value of $43,084. For lentils, the production would fill a little more than two super Bs with a total gross value of $158,312.
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But the wording of the graphic said the dollar value applied to each Super B truckload instead of the whole quarter section.
And we compounded this with a calculation error.
This was a team effort.
We have republished that graphic today on Page 18, with corrections.
I have a book called A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, by math professor John Allen Paulos. It’s an interesting read on how numbers are, shall we say, misspent in many newspaper articles.
Craig Silverman, the man behind the Regret The Error initiative, notes that The West Australian newspaper once corrected its misuse of numbers by observing that “As mathematicians, journalists make fine geishas.”
Silverman gives five reasons for mistakes journalist make with numbers. The British Broadcasting Corp. adds four more in its journalism blog.
We are acutely aware of this. We deal with numbers all the time and we’re actually very good at math. Our markets and ag finance sections are accurate and well read.
Still, when it comes to math missteps, we are in good company. My favourite math mistake comes from NASA. I have visited its launch facility in Florida several times. The space agency boasts that it gets the top engineers from the top engineering schools. Yet in 1999, NASA lost a $125-million Mars orbiter because instructions from Earth were transmitted in imperial measurements, while the orbiter was programmed to use metric.
I’ve always wondered what the brains in the room first said when that mistake came to light.
I know what’s said in the newsroom when gaffes are discovered – you don’t want to be there.
