The flood photo that was from a different country
A dramatic flood photo spread across group chats this week as breaking news. Wanjiru shows how a reverse image search traced it to another continent in under two minutes.
A statistic with no denominator
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Show notes
Crime doubled, compared to what
A headline said one type of crime had doubled. The original report, once Wanjiru found it, told a very different story. This episode is about denominators, base rates and the questions to ask of any number.
- Where the claim came from and how the headline was written
- Finding the underlying report in three clicks
- Doubled from what: why two to four is not a crime wave
- How percentages hide small numbers
- This week's habit: ask what the number is a share of
Kevin reads out listener submissions at the end, including a chart with no axis labels.
Transcript
Hello again, this is Who Told You That, with me Wanjiru Maina and the ever patient Kevin. This week we are doing numbers, and I promise it will not hurt. A headline said that a certain type of crime had doubled in a year, and by Thursday it was being quoted on television as though it were a fact everyone had checked. I went and found the report it came from. It is public, it is 40 pages, and the number in question went from two incidents to four. Two to four is technically doubling. It is not a crime wave. So today we talk about denominators, about how percentages hide small numbers, and about the one question that will protect you from most bad statistics: what is this a share of? You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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