Statistics are widely acknowledged as an essential part of journalism. Yet despite repeated investigations showing that routine news coverage involving statistics leaves much to be desired, scholarship has failed to produce an adequate theoretical understanding of how statistics are employed in journalism. Earlier research showed many journalists think anything counted or measured and expressed in numbers represents a form of unarguable truth, which may affect whether they think statistical information should be checked or verified. This study examines the verification process in detail by combining 1) qualitative interviews with fifteen working journalists about their attitudes, decision making and work practices regarding statistics; 2) an analysis of manifest statistical content in a sample of the stories created by these subjects; 3) an item-by-item examination of the decision-making processes behind each statistic in each of the sampled stories. Based on the results, I conclude the subjects did not have a single standard for verification, but followed a range of practices from simple reliance on authority at one end to careful examination of the methods behind a quantified fact claim at the other. Theoretical reasons for this are explored.
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