Disbelief
Yes, it’s time for another dose of mockery. Regular readers may recall this, or this, or maybe this or even this - all examples of poor mathematical skills (or perhaps just a lack of proof-reading) on the BBC News website. Well, it’s been a while, and I’d almost forgotten about their problems with numbers, but today I was reminded that there really does seem to be a problem there.
Now if there’s one section where it’s important to have at least a basic grasp of numbers, it has to be the Business area. You get lots of numbers there, and getting them wrong, or making it obvious that you don’t understand what you’re talking about, makes you look very silly indeed. Take today’s quite serious report about the Pound being at an all-time low against the Euro. Amongst the speculation, explanation and commentary is this solid fact:
While the pound went as low as 1.2500 euros, conversely the European single currency touched as high as 80 pence.
Now the way that’s stated makes it sound like two completely separate events. One one scale, the poor old Pound is down to 1.25 Euros, and on the other, the Euro has battled its way to the heady heights of being worth 80p. Ummm. There. Is. One. Scale. There is no “conversely” about it. The statements are two ways of saying the same thing. It’s like saying “it rained, and conversely it was wet”.
If this was on any other news site, I’d ignore it, but I have this bizarre idea that the BBC should work to higher standards. Silly of me, I know…