Tony Blews

Statistics, apparently, can’t lie. Just like the camera never lies (according to Bucks Fizz and/or Elton John). However, just like Photoshop can remove unsightly warts and disgraced aides from a photograph, if you present statistics in the right way you can turn some slightly alarming news into something utterly terrifying to the masses.

The Sun (again) gives us this story about how the number of unemployed people has reached 2.4 million. In this story they present this graph:

To the casual observer who knows nothing about how to read a graph, this would appear to indicate that unemployment has grown threefold.

If we show this graph with a properly scaled y axis, things don’t look quite as bad:

Of course it is still a massive leap, but it doesn’t look so scary and thus won’t sell as many papers.

And as i’ve shamelessly violated one copyright today, I might as well go for two. So here are some Marillion lyrics:

…You call for justice and distort the truth
Well Ive had enough of all your pretty pretty speeches
Receive your punishment
Expose your throats to my righteous claws…

-Grendel, Marillion

Oh, and for the record, I only buy The Sun for the Alphapuzzle, the crossword, and to look for all the two-faced double standards and downright scaremongering bullshit.

Oh, and the free TV guide and Jeremy Clarkson’s column on Saturdays.