http://heatherbrooke.org/2008/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/ Heather Brooke is an award-winning writer, journalist and activist Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:17:30 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://heatherbrooke.org/2008/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics/comment-page-1/#comment-1721 George Grant Sun, 02 Nov 2008 22:39:23 +0000 http://www.yrtk.org/?p=569#comment-1721 Well said Mr Bardo. Given the requisitely low level of media scrutiny, figures can be spun to say almost anything. FOI requests are indeed essential to remedy this issue. Government departments need to know that crunching the numbers is likely to do more harm than good, as the statistics they produce are more likely than not to be scrutinised. This has not been the case for far to long. More journalists need to understand the potential of FOI requests, and to make use of them. Nothing better than the threat of force but the use of force... Well said Mr Bardo. Given the requisitely low level of media scrutiny, figures can be spun to say almost anything. FOI requests are indeed essential to remedy this issue. Government departments need to know that crunching the numbers is likely to do more harm than good, as the statistics they produce are more likely than not to be scrutinised. This has not been the case for far to long. More journalists need to understand the potential of FOI requests, and to make use of them. Nothing better than the threat of force but the use of force…

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