In a story about Jeff Immelt helping Obama “create” jobs, we get this sentence:
When Immelt took over, GE had a global head count of 313,000, with 54 percent in the United States. Now it has a global head count of 304,000, with 134,000 in the United States.
Why oh why do they do that??
54% of 313,000 is 169,020
134,000 is 44% of 304,000
Why not compare similar type numbers with each other? I know why they do it in a story with an agenda when the numbers are too close but they want to make them sound farther apart, but why is it pertinent here?
Journalism 103 – How to write out numbers so that readers have to go to their calculators to get a good feel for the comparison.
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