Journalism and...Math? What the what?

It's true, Dr. Baltrip is forcing us to learn math...but it's "fun" math (if such a thing exists.)

I haven't had a math class since I so gloriously failed my College Algebra class my first semester at K-State...and this isn't a math class, which is good.

We discussed statistics, in their more basic form...percentages, averages*, medians...

This was by no means an entire two hour class about statistics...nor was it similar to an out and out statistics class, which is also good, since I've heard they're quite boring.

One of the things that averages and medians are good for is comparing employee salaries. An example given was salaries of 7 employees:
$19,000
$20,000
$22,000
$24,000
$25,000
$230,000
In this example the median salary is $23,000 and the average is $51,857...a big difference.

Dr. Baltrip used this example to illustrate the point that, in many cases, the average and median salaries must be reported in order to tell the full story. (This was also stressed by my News & Feature Writing professor, Bonnie Bressers.)

Statistics lie. They can be manipulated to, pretty much, say whatever someone with an agenda wants them to say. This is why it's important for Dr. Baltrip to teach us these things and why it's important for people reading things in the media to be skeptical of statistics and understand what they're really saying. Most people, I'd wager, would think of "median" and "average" as the same thing. Dr. Baltrip's example from above illustrates that point perfectly.

"Plurality" is the number when you take the number of votes the top vote getter got and the number of votes the second place vote getter got. She stressed that plurality only refers to the difference between the top two vote getters. The difference between the second and third vote getter in an election is not referred to as a plurality.

For charts and graphs, it is necessary to include definition of the population sampled, exact wording of questions, margin of error and source/sponsor of poll. It's also good to included when and how the data was collected.

Polls never, ever predict an outcome. Not ever.

Some online math help websites for journalists Dr. Baltrip hipped us to:
Math Center
Percentage Calulator
Bloomberg Currency Converter
Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator
Basic Calculator (Most of us probably have one of these on our computers...or our phones.)
* "Average" is the same as "mean."