Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

I have harangued reporters for decades over their failure to express big numbers in a context that would make them meaningful to their audiences. For example, when they report that we will spend roughly $100 billion this year on SNAP, relatively few people know that this is around 1.4 percent of total spending. They just hear a REALLY BIG NUMBER, to most of them the number would probably mean the same thing if it would $50 billion or $200 billion.

It would be a very simple matter for reporters to make a habit of including four or five words of context so that these really big numbers would be meaningful to their audience. I considered it a big victory when I worked with several groups to persuade Margaret Sullivan, who was the New York Times Public Editor, to write a

© CounterPunch