I’m gearing up to introduce my journalism students to a news project that requires a basic knowledge of math. I don’t want to make it too frustrating to them, but I do want to emphasize how easy it is to be misled by the math.

Margin of Error deserves better than the throw-away line it gets
in the bottom of stories about polling data. Writers who don’t
understand margin of error, and its importance in interpreting
scientific research, can easily embarrass themselves and their news
organizations. —Robert Niles

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