zlacker

>>tysone+(OP)
Why do these articles always start with a story about a person? I see this in nearly all articles from american news papers. It's strange.

Seems like a paper from a young student who needs to get his 3000 wordcount.

It just bloats the article and makes it difficult to get the information out of it.

>>Tommek+R11
People are humans, they relate to individual stories more than raw statistics.

I think it's great, it shows there's always a human side to trends and large statistics.

>>noober+621
And that's how we get those "vaccines cause autism" mothers. They like stories more than statistics, too.

>>Tommek+b21
Polemic. We also get stories like, "despite a strong economic recovery, John, 26, struggles to find a new job after being laid off."

>>anonco+w41
That's my point.

>>Tommek+c51
If you only look at numbers and not individual stories, you miss the blind-spots of your data.

>>cyborg+J51
They aren't blind spots, they're outliers. If a change to medicare makes 99% of users significantly better off and 1% significantly worse, then it's a net good change. The useful reporting tells both sides, but simply telling the sobstory of one person really negatively impacted is worthless.