[FRIAM] 25 numbers every journalist should know

[Tom Johnson]

Friends:

My apologies for the cross-posts, but....

For an upcoming presentation, I'm putting together a list of the 25 basic
statistics every journalist should know, at least withing a range of plus or
minus 5 percent.  This list would, ideally, be a template that could be
given to journos in any country so that he/she would always be ready to put
many stories in context.  Below is a rough beginning.  I wonder if you might
have some data points of a similar vein that you find useful?

THE 25 NUMBERS EVERY JOURNALIST SHOULD KNOW
*) The world's population
*) Your nation's population and as a percent of the world
*) Your state/province/district population and as a percent of your nation
*) Your city's pop. and as a percent of your state/province/district
*) The percent of change for all of the above in the past 10 years
*) The current budget of your nation/state/province/district/city government
*) The sub-sections of the above budgets for health, education, public
safety, infrastructure and their relative percentages
*) The world's live birth rates and same for your
nation/state/province/district/city
*) Average life expectancy for males and females in your
nation/state/province/district/city
*) Average family size for your nation/state/province/district/city
*) Per capita and per family annual income for your
nation/state/province/district/city
*) Average years of education for males and females in the world and your
nation/state/province/district/city

Many thanks.  I'll post the roundup of the suggestions.

-Tom Johnson
-- 
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J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
www.analyticjournalism.com
505.577.6482(c)                                 505.473.9646(h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com               tom at jtjohnson.com

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the
existing model obsolete."
                                                   -- Buckminster Fuller
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