Thursday December 18, 2008

statistical language

From NYT concerning the list of people who have donated to Clinton's foundation:

The foundation said that its median gift since its inception came to $45 and that nearly 90 percent of its gifts were $250 or smaller.

Isn't this kind of heavy tailed distribution of contributions leading to a small number of influences exactly what middle America shouldn't want to see? Given the focus on "median" instead of "mean" and then the use of language which seems to indicate a large number of small donations I'd guess the hope is that most people reading think "mean" and don't envision a really rightward skewed distribution with a few people out on the tail having Bill's ear. ( Dec 18 2008, 10:18:40 AM PST ) Permalink