Fox News’ Visually Distorted Charts

By on December 22, 2011 in News 9

FlowingData points out a recent graphic from a story on Fox News showing the unemployment rate changes under Obama. The numbers are presumably correct, but do not seem to correspond to the rise and fall of the visual, in which, for instance, 8.6 is a higher number than 8.8 or 8.9. Ah, the “Fox Chart” — what does it mean? Is it a work of postmodern art?

00 Fox

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  • DeepCough

    “It’s fuzzy math…..” ~George W. Bush, 43rd Commander-in-Chief

  • Anan

    Whats wrong with this chart?  You are looking at it like too simple–That data is correct–Lookup NFP and  US unemployment  rates month by month.The first Fri of every month this  is reported  and the numbers are correct.It looks like you don’t understand how these numbers are reported.You can see the numbers yourself at a site like Forex factory.com  under calendar , then the month  and the 1st Friday of every month.You are looking at it like its a math equation–Its not

  • Gregg C

    Ha ha, that’s not the only thing Fox News distorts. 

  • Obvious…

    The picture is distorted, NOT THE NUMBERS.   8.6% is higher than 8.9% and 8.8%. 

  • Anonymous

    Yea, its not about the numbers themselves but where they are on the graph. They have *.6 higher up on the graph that *.9 and 8.8……It visually distorts the graph to look as if not as much progress has been made.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003147612616 Donnie Jordan

    Like everyone else has stated, the numbers are indeed CORRECT! However, the visual graph itself has been distorted to blind and manipulate viewers. It’s misleading.

  • Mrkgrismer

    Wow, somebody made an error on the last entry on the chart and it is some sort of worldwide ‘conspiracy’.  Geese people, it’s a simple error. Get a life!

    • averii

      Lol you don’t make a simple error like that with computer generated charts. Go into Excel and make a trend line with data points of 8.9 and 8.6 and try to make 8.6 look higher. See how simple that is.

  • Mrkgrismer

    Wow, somebody made an error on the last entry on the chart and it is some sort of worldwide ‘conspiracy’.  Geese people, it’s a simple error. Get a life!