Data Driven Journalism: The importance of numeracy for data journalists

Nicolas Kayser-Bril: "We need to convince journalism schools to teach math in a purpose-oriented fashion. As Gigerenzer said in a 2010 conference, students are taught trigonometry but how to understand risks properly is overlooked. Decision-makers in J-schools and media companies need to realize that data in itself without better numeracy skills will not lead to better journalism. To tell true facts to their audience and to build trust, journalists need to gain the skills to understand and interpret data."

Chase Davis: Applying Benford’s Law to CAR

"In case you missed it at IRE Miami this year, Phil Meyer and Steve Doig put on a great panel about techniques reporters could and should be applying, but, for whatever reason, are not. One of the techniques Meyer mentioned is known as Benford's Law -- a decades-old mathematical rule that forensic accountants have recently used to spot fraud by examining the distribution of individual digits in large dataset..."