Some Good Newsroom Math Resources

 

 

Books:
News & Numbers: A Guide to Reporting Statistical Claims and Controversies in Health and Related Fields
Victor Cohn, 1989, Iowa State University Press
 
Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences

John Allen Paulos, 1988, Hill & Wang, A Division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper
John Allen Paulos, 1995, BasicBooks, A Division of Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.
 
Numbers in the Newsroom: Using Math and Statistics in News
Sarah Cohen, 2001, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.

 

Precision Journalism: A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods (4th Ed.)

Philip Meyer, 2002, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

 

Math Tools for Journalists

Kathleen Woodruff Wickham, 2002, Marion Street Press, Inc.
 
 
Articles:
How Sources, Reporters View Math Errors in News
Scott R. Maier, Oct. 1, 2003, Newspaper Research Journal
 
Why Math Matters
Chip Scanlan
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=52&aid=71048
 
Avoiding Numeric Novocain: Writing Well with Numbers
Chip Scanlan
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=52&aid=23390
 
Numerical Competence
http://www.poynterextra.org/extra/compcred/comp_numer.htm
 
No numbers please - we're journalists
By Nicole Bailey
http://www.journalism.ubc.ca/thunderbird/archives/2001.04/numbers.html
(This is an abridged version of a thesis.)
 
 
 
Web sites:
Ask Dr. Math
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
 
RobertNiles.com
http://www.robertniles.com/
 
NewsEngin's "Free Tools"
http://www.newsengin.com/NewsEngin.nsf/JumpOffPoints/Free+Tools
 
Martindale's Calculators Online (More than 19,000 online calculators)
http://www.martindalecenter.com/Calculators.html
 
Math Test for Journalists (By Steve Doig)
http://www.ire.org/education/math_test.html
 
No Train No Gain's Numeracy Exercises & Resources
http://www.notrain-nogain.org/Train/Exer/Num/NUME.asp
http://www.notrain-nogain.org/Train/Res/Num/NUM.asp
 
OnlineConversion.com
http://www.onlineconversion.com/
 
Math in Daily Life: How do numbers affect everyday decisions?
http://www.learner.org/exhibits/dailymath/
 
Getting the numbers right
http://www.newslab.org/resources/math.htm
 
Danger! Numbers in the newsroom
http://home.earthlink.net/~cassidyny/danger.htm
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


"Ratios, Percentages, Statistics! Oh My!"
News Division Program, SLA 2005 Annual Conference

SLA News Division Home

(Compiled mostly by Megan Gallup , News Research Editor, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, with a few additions from Steve Doig , Arizona State University)

Last updated 6/20/05