Monday, October 09, 2006

Asking why

The Toronto Star has been running a series of promotions with the tag line, "ask why". Unfortunately, their misuse of numbers might lead many to ask why they are promoting their inability to explain research results and numbers.

On Saturday, they wrote that "A comparison of seven Ontario municipalities has shown that Torontonians are by far the most diligent recyclers in the province." This could only be true if it had already been established that those seven were the top seven in the province.

Today, the "ask why" promo makes the suspiciously exact yet meaningless assertion that "242 new immigrants call Toronto home." No time period is mentioned.

[They now have corrected the second ad to read "242 new immigrants call Toronto home every day." (my emphasis)]

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