Jeffrey A. Myers, ASA Public Relations Coordinator

The ASA has embarked on an initiative to help journalists and their editors become more statistically savvy.

The association has partnered with the newly established Sense About Science USA to launch a new STATS.org website aimed at improving media coverage of statistical matters. SASUSA is a branch of Sense About Science, a United Kingdom–based organization devoted to equipping the public to make sense of evidence in science.

This new project ties into the ASA’s ongoing media outreach and public relations initiatives, such as the “This Is Statistics” public awareness campaign, to maximize its exposure to external audiences and establish the association as the recognized authority on all topics related to statistical science.

“Data have permeated our global society to the point that journalists of all types are producing hundreds of data-related stories every day. This new dynamic means the ASA needs a better way to connect with journalists who want to learn about statistical science,” said ASA President David Morganstein, who spearheaded the formation of the joint project as a presidential initiative for his term. “This ASA-STATS.org partnership will work in tandem with our other external communications initiatives to enhance the ASA’s visibility among journalists and the people who read their stories.”

STATS.org was launched in 1993, became affiliated with George Mason University in 2004, and recently became part of SASUSA’s portfolio. In collaboration with the ASA, it will create a statistics informational and resource hub for journalists—and anyone else interested in how numbers shape science and society.

“Innumeracy has long been identified in research literature and by journalism educators as a significant problem in the news media,” said SASUSA Director Trevor Butterworth, who will serve as the project’s editor-in-chief. “For example, it baffles me how you could write an alarming news story about a potent risk and then fail to explain its potency. If I am going to tell people that they are at risk from something, surely I should—as a matter of ethics—tell them what their risk is?”

An approach to tackling this will be to connect journalists with statisticians who are experts on specific topics in addition to providing them general statistical advice and explanation. “The future of journalism is one of collaboration between those who understand numbers and those who can translate them into prose,” said Rebecca Goldin, who is professor of mathematical sciences at George Mason University and the director of STATS.org. “While not every journalist can be Nate Silver, every journalist can benefit from having access to a Nate Silver.”

Goldin has spent the past decade helping journalists from leading news organizations—ABC News, The Economist, The New York Times, and Wired—think through the numbers on a wide range of scientific issues ranging from whether you should buy insurance for your new tech product through the fraught intricacies of cancer epidemiology and jury voting bias.

Through this partnership, ASA member volunteers will contribute their statistical expertise to create, as Butterworth describes it, “a new kind of media venture that rises to the challenges of our information age.”

The relationship with STATS.org is an investment on the part of the ASA to improve public outreach and increase the visibility of statistical science in media circles, said ASA Executive Director Ronald L. Wasserstein. He encouraged association members to support this new initiative by volunteering their time and expertise when asked to help with a STATS project.

An ASA member who provides a statistical review will be offering expertise as an individual and can decide whether his or her name is used or they are quoted in the STATS story.

“This new ASA initiative will be instrumental to raising media and public awareness and appreciation for statistical science,” Wasserstein explained. “We’re grateful for the contributions our members will be making to this effort.”

Some member-provided reviews will require a quick turnaround because of the need to respond to a media story while the topic is fresh in the mind of reporters and a focus of public discourse. Topics deemed less time-sensitive would have a longer turnaround time, noted Wasserstein.