Taking a closer look.

I like to keep up with BBC News; it's cheaper than a newspaper, and a procrastination device that actually leads to further learning, albeit not about perfect matchings or Gaussian primes. I saw an article today about how the hunger in South Asia has reached a 40 year high. I read it, and it mildly irritated me.

Journalism in general tends to annoy me for the main reason that they use statistics in the same way they use adjectives. They will twist them to make the text more emotive, more touching. Rather than letting statistics be open, frank, and speak for themselves, in a factual neutral environment. They become practically meaningless numbers to play with, rather than offering a reader real information.

First of all, in this article, we open with that 100 million more people are hungry compared to two years ago. Well, 100 million sounds like a lot, doesn't it? There's not that many people in the UK, so it can hit you to think that it's the "equivalent" of all of the UK starving, and a third or so of the people in France.

Except, we're not told how many were hungry two years ago. If, say, 100 people were hungry two years ago, that's a HUGE leap you've made, in relative terms. If it was 500 million hungry, adding 100 million is a smaller percentage gap, and you can put the rise into perspective properly. But, they don't want you to assess that; they just want you to think, "Gosh, that's a lot of people!"

Then, there's the obligatory wage comparison. "Millions of South Asian people live on less than $2 a day." Again, we're being lead to think "Wow! $2 can't even buy me a big enough soda to quench my mad Western thirst. How can they afford ANYTHING?"

Except, again, we're not being given perspective. For example, what's the cost of living in South Asia? Given that these people hungry, and not dead, $2 a day must be enough to sustain some level of life. Not enough to save, or afford a good quality of food or housing, but enough to stay alive. A lower cost of living does mean that a living wage is proportionally lower.

I've been watching a programme where 6 Brits go to South Asia to find out where food comes from. In the programme, they're given about £5 a day in some cases. This would get you the basics: somewhere to sleep, some food. Very few have enough to spend on luxuries, or save for travel. Some can't even afford to live with their families, since a wage doesn't stretch that far. But, they live. They survive.

So, $2 a day isn't good. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that it's taken out of a context. It's just there - a figure. A figure can only have the voice of what text it's nestled in. And when your text is telling you, "Gosh, aren't there lots of hungry people? Wow, they live off the cost of a bottle of Coke!", then that's what you end up thinking after you've read it.

Unless you create your own perspective, which you can only do by knowing something more.