As a former city editor, copy editor and managing editor, I know from experience that reporters are notoriously bad at math. Percentage increases an decreases seem to be particularly hard for reporters to compute. It was not surprising, then, to read about this instance of a math-challenged reporter from one of our nation’s leading newspapers, and involving a student in Raleigh:
One dollar for a 3.2-mile round trip?! At Raleigh’s $3.58-a-gallon gas price average, that would mean White’s car only gets 11.5 miles to the gallon. No 1997 model from Honda has a fuel economy rating that low. The closest is the Honda Passport with 14/17 for city/highway mileage respectively, according to fueleconomy.gov.
It’s amazing how gullible a reporter can be when a story conforms to his “template,” and how skeptical and questioning he can be when he disagrees with something. So much for objectivity.
