Making Sense of Statistics - a review and guide by the BBC Trust

The past decade has seen a huge increase in the public availability of facts and figures - an increase resulting from the near universal availability of the Internet and the growing acceptance by public authorities of the need for transparency. This has been accompanied by a growing market for data journalism and an ever-greater reliance in public discourse on figures and trends, some of which can be taken at face value, but many of which require analysis and understanding if their significance is to be understood. On top of that, facts and figures are often used – and abused – to create stories or to justify assertions that they simply cannot support.

Against this background, the BBC Trust decided to focus its final impartiality review on the way the BBC handles statistics and on what lessons can be learned in offering its audiences the best chance of understanding and evaluating what they mean.

The review set out to assess: whether BBC UK public services news and current affairs output achieves due impartiality and accuracy on controversial subjects when it includes statistical analysis; whether the BBC provides duly accurate and impartial reporting of statistics in its UK public services news and current affairs output; whether BBC output provides accessible, critical analysis when reporting statistics to enable audiences to understand the issues; and whether BBC content demonstrates due impartiality and accuracy through appropriate challenge and scrutiny of context in its reporting of statistics cited by third parties.

The review concluded that the BBC appears to be a model of good practice in terms of dealing with statistics cautiously, in an accurate and impartial way. However, it also pointed out some concerns, including: a lack of confidence among some journalists in the handling of statistics; a perceived reluctance sometimes to provide fuller interpretation of statistics for audiences; and a lack of appropriate challenge in some output when statistics are used by external contributors. 

The report includes two hand-outs providing tips and guidelines about using statistics in journalism.