These days we hear a lot of Covid statistics in the news. But no matter what your journalistic focus, stats can sometimes come in handy. Used with care, numbers can add clarity, meaning, and depth to writing.

By Peter P. Jacobi

Let your writers know, when necessary, that people fall in love with people, not statistics.

There is an overdependence on numbers in exposition and argumentation. That's not because they are easy to use, because they aren't. It's probably because they are easy to gather. In information gathering, they are often the path of least resistance.

If statistics are necessary, make sure they are not overused. Too many numbers in the story can overwhelm the reader. They also can confuse the reader and hide the true nature of the message.

On the other hand, if statistics are necessary, make sure they are not underused. That can result in reader puzzlement.

Insist that usage be selective. Insist that every number used clarifies. Insist that distortion is dishonesty. Insist that accuracy, in statistics as elsewhere, is a journalistic necessity.

And encourage creativity so that statistics gain meaning, make a point, summarize, contextualize.

"Put three grains of sand inside a vast cathedral," Sir James Jeans, the esteemed British scientist, once suggested, "and the cathedral will be more closely packed with sand than space with stars."

That's vastness clarified.

Be Selective

"In the 15 minutes it takes to read these two pages," wrote Timothy Aeppel in the Christian Science Monitor years ago, "more than 2,200 people will be added to the world's population. Each week we add the equivalent of another Houston; each year, another Mexico."

That was Aeppel's way of explaining the earth's explosive population growth in an article titled "5 Billion and Counting." Scope and enormity are clearly identified. The statistics were carefully chosen. They're the more effective for having been used sparingly. The author has not flooded us.

Symbolically Portrayed

Remember the marvelous special explanation John McPhee used in Basin and Range? "With your arms spread wide again to represent all time on earth," he said, "look at one hand with its line of life. The Cambrian begins in the wrist, and the Permian Extinction is at the outer end of the palm. All of the Cenozoic is in a fingerprint, and in a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history."

No statistics at all except by implication. How much that says. How vividly that explains.

Facts with Impact

If the writer finds the right statistic, the message is immediately enunciated; no elaboration is required. As, for example, once when a US News & World Report writer told me that every minute of every day, 53 acres of the world's tropical rain forests are cleared. Shocking. Then the writer does some multiplying to let me know those 53 acres times 53 acres times 53 acres and so forth turn into more than 43,000 square miles a year, an area the size of Ohio or Tennessee. Staggering.

A Compelling Play on Numbers

An article in an airline magazine asked me to "imagine one of our giant 747s flying at full cruising speed of 500 knots giving forth twin vapor trails of government forms ... vapor trails with a total width of five feet and as long as the 747’s flight on an around-the-clock basis for 38 days and nights. Such a flow of forms, 19.5 billion in number, would be equal to the forms used in the federal system in a single year."

That's playing with numbers, and playing is always potentially dangerous. But in this case, I find a compelling point on the verge of being made. The writer then continues with some well-crafted wordsmithery: "long forms, short forms, multi-page forms -- forms with middling questions to mystify the mind and anger the spirit, forms with small print to blearify the eyes and dull the heart, and forms with tiny spaces to crampify the hand and imprison the intellect. Forms to kill the dream."

That's the way to use statistics.

Theoretically Speaking...

Now, remember, and ask your writers to remember, one can do anything with statistics. The president of the American Society for the Conservation of Gravity, for instance, once told me: "Americans, with only 6 percent of the world's population, use 68 percent of the gravity. What goes up requires gravity to come down. Our countless skyscrapers with elevators whizzing, our huge jet freighters, our incessant rocket launchings bear witness to our shameful national don't-give-a-damn attitude. Gravity is our most precious terrestrial resource. It is a vital resource. And it is a nonrenewable resource. When we run out, everything will float off the Earth's surface into space. Women and children will go first."

Yes, indeed, one can do anything with statistics. If your article is about strange flora and fauna and you attribute the above to source, that's fine, of course. Otherwise? Enough said.

Potent Truisms

I was more impressed with a statistical package created more than 30 years ago by Dr. Henry Leiper of the Congregational Christian Churches and the American Bible Society. He reconstructed the world into a community of 1,000 people -- this in an effort to show more clearly what we are all about. That community, he said, would include 60 Americans. By now, I perhaps needn't point out, the number of Americans would be smaller, but that would really strengthen the argument being made.

Half of the town's income, figured Dr. Leiper, would go to those 60 Americans; those 60 would have 15 times the number of possessions as others in town. They would produce 16 percent of the community’s food supply, eat most of what they grow, and store the rest in their backyard sheds. They would eat 72 percent above the daily maximum food requirements. Meanwhile, a third of the people in that town would go to bed hungry every night, and perhaps 100 would be near starvation. The Americans would have a disproportionate share of steel, fuel, coal, electric power, and general equipment. A majority of the people would be poorly educated or illiterate, hungry or ill. Half the population would never have heard of Jesus or the religion he inspired. Most of the Americans would be so busy watching television and playing golf and raising their kids and making money that they would be unaware of the plight of their fellow townspeople.

And so forth.

The picture created gives a vivid impression of a geopolitical reality, of moral and economic and cultural dilemmas. One could perhaps have made the argument through humanization just as well, through the use of individual haves and have-nots. But the statistics make a muscular argument.

No More, No Less

Sometimes one statistic says enough, as in: the rank of national and local Miss America pageants among all sources of college scholarship money for women -- first. Sometimes one statistic does not say enough, as in: the company made $10 million in profits last year -- is that up, down, stable, sufficient? We need to be told at least that the figure is up from $8 million the previous year, an increase of 25 percent. Note that these statistics are from many years ago.

As you guide your writer or you judge the manuscript, just remember that those statistics which tell the story should be used, no more, no fewer.

A classic article from a past issue in tribute to the late Peter J. Jacobi, longtime EO writer and author of The Magazine Article: How to Think It, Plan It, Write It.

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