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9 April 2007

Calame vs. Nielsen

It looks like those of us who would like more sophisticated reporting of statistical results in major media outlets have an ally in Byron Calame, the public editor for the New York Times. We've blogged before about his concerns about the Times' coverage of statistical data. This week, he's taking on the ubiquitous Nielsen television ratings, ratings generated from surveys yet never reported with uncertainty estimates. The best paragraph from the piece:

Why not at least tell readers that Nielsen didn’t provide the margin of error for its “estimates”? I put that question to Bruce Headlam, the editor in charge of the Monday business section, where charts of Nielsen’s audience data appear weekly. “If we run a large disclaimer saying, in effect, this company is withholding a critical piece of information, I imagine many readers would simply turn the page,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Imagine that; readers might want their news to be, well, news!

Posted by Mike Kellermann at April 9, 2007 12:30 PM