Fighting Disinformation: Maybe Reporters Can Try Putting Big Budget Numbers in Contexts that Make Them Understandable

Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post’s media columnist, had a good piece on how reporters can try to combat the nonsense that right-wing politicians and media sources are spewing. I would like to add one item to her list, writing big budget numbers in ways that are meaningful to readers.

While this seems stupidly simple, for some reason reporters refuse to do it.  The point is that when readers see that we are spending $70 billion on food stamps or $15 billion on foreign aid (roughly last  yea...