Media innumeracy

John Derbyshire on the media which insists that Trump is stupid.

Media innumeracy.     Just a footnote to my comments there about money in politics.

Thursday evening MSNBC host Brian Williams was discussing this precise topic with Mara Gay, who sits on the New York Times editorial board. Over to them.

[Clip:  Williams:  Do you see it as a possibility if he wants to spend a billion bucks beating this guy, he could do it?

Gay:  Absolutely. Um, somebody tweeted recently that, erm, actually, with the money he spent you could have given every American a million dollars …

Williams:  I've got it. Let's put it up on the screen.

Gay:  Yah.]

Up on the TV screen goes the image of a tweet from someone named Mekita Rivas. The tweet reads, quote:

Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. population is 327 million. He could have given each American $1 million and still have money left over. I feel like a $1 million check would be life-changing for most people. Yet he wasted it all on ads and STILL LOST.

End tweet.

Williams and his interviewee continue:

[Clip:  Williams:  When I read it, er, tonight on social media, it kind of all became clear. Bloomberg spent 500 million on ads, U.S. population 327 million — don't tell us if you're ahead of us on the math — he could've given each American one million dollars and have had lunch money left over. It's an incredible way of putting it.

Gay:  It's an incredible way of putting it. It's true, it's disturbing, it does, it does suggest, y'know, what we're talking about here, which is: There's too much money in politics.}

Now, I have made arithmetical slips in public, and my usual reaction to seeing other people do so is: "There but for the grace of God go I." This one, though, is far beyond a mere slip: It is shriekingly innumerate. If you don't know that giving a million dollars to each of some millions of people is going to cost you trillions, you are not safe to be left alone around numbers.

When two of you, both earning far more than I do, agree on the blunder; and prepare a TV segment with the image of a tweet making the blunder, all without noticing anything amiss … I'm sorry, but that's disgraceful.

Enoch Powell famously remarked, speaking of mass immigration, that "numbers are of the essence." Yes, they are. They are the essence of a great many social issues.

If you don't have a basic instinctive feel for numbers — and if you confuse millions with trillions, you don't — you should not be doing public commentary, or sitting on the editorial board of a prestigious newspaper, or preparing prime-time political commentary shows for the screen.

Somebody here needs firing.

The media giants could have multiplied 1,000,000 times 337,000,000 but they are too stupid and lazy to do their own work...