The NYT’s Analysis of Democratic Tax Plans — A Really Big Number Orgy

I have often gone after the media on printing large numbers that are meaningless to almost all their readers. The point is that when you throw out numbers in the millions, billions, and trillions, very few readers have any idea what these numbers mean. It is possible to make them meaningful by simply adding some context, such as expressing them relative to the size of the economy or as a per person amount.

I actually got Margaret Sullivan, then the NYT Public Editor, to completely agree with...