If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the Internet age, it’s that journalists make a lot of mistakes. (Believe me, I’ve made my share of boneheaded ones.) But there are a few areas where journalistic ignorance really seems to persist, and basic math is one of them. With that in mind, look at this chyron from CNN last night, passed on to me by an old colleague. Notice anything wrong?
I’m pretty confident my nine-year-old could look at that and tell me that 36 is not 12.43 percent of 448. Thirty-six divided by 448 is 0.0803, or 8 percent almost right on the nose. However, 448 divided by 36 is 12.44, so it appears that someone did the math exactly backwards, slapped the percent symbol on the end, and put it on the air. (How they got 12.43 instead of 12.44 is further puzzling.)
https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/19/cnn-cant-do-the-mueller-report-math/
I’m pretty confident my nine-year-old could look at that and tell me that 36 is not 12.43 percent of 448. Thirty-six divided by 448 is 0.0803, or 8 percent almost right on the nose. However, 448 divided by 36 is 12.44, so it appears that someone did the math exactly backwards, slapped the percent symbol on the end, and put it on the air. (How they got 12.43 instead of 12.44 is further puzzling.)
https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/19/cnn-cant-do-the-mueller-report-math/
