Misleading Article, Misleading Data, Exactly the same Problem

There is a growing gap between facts and what we make of it.

We live in a society filled with countless young people and graduates wasting away in dead-end jobs. The numbers are increasing more than a viral meme on Facebook.

Our press is being tainted with false data or articles that portray nonexistent progress. It was only the other night that came to my email a very interesting newsletter about business school students. It was a pretty little article from a national paper on the incredible realisation they became aware of.

The message was clear: 70%+ of all business school graduates (eg. finance, accounting, MBA, business management etc.) have registered an increase in their income after completing the course.

It was nothing in this article about the study itself or how the data was collected (the methodology). There was nothing about which universities were considered (selection bias), nothing about the overall satisfaction of students (rankings correlation), the average age of people surveyed or an understanding of previous earnings for those surveyed. No breakdown of data whatsoever, only a statement.

The article was about 500 words of nothing. After a few minutes and a blank face, the coin dropped … I had realised how manipulative this article really was. I remember myself a few years back before I went to university, I had almost no income. Like me, the large majority of business school students…