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How to fix boring statistics
How to fix boring statistics

Surveys and data studies will sometimes result in small, un-newsworthy percentages. Here's how to make those numbers more newsworthy.

Veronica Fletcher avatar
Written by Veronica Fletcher
Updated over a month ago

I had a pitch rejected once because the journalist told me they "needed more eye watering statistics to catch the editors attention".

I.e my headline / subject line (that beer prices were rising by 11%) wasn't shocking enough.

After this feedback, I came up with some of tricks to make smaller figures more news worthy and wanted to share them with you.

1. Contextualize the Numbers

My "beer prices rise by 11%" statistic becomes a lot more shocking when I add some context:

e.g.

"Beer prices increasing at fastest rate in 10 years"

"Beer prices rising five times faster than inflation"

2. Reframe the Figures

Most people will know about changing small percentages into fractions:

  • "10% of people admit" → "1 in 10 people admit"

  • "Complaints increased by 30%" → "Complaints surged by a third"

But another way to position percentages is to frame them in terms of what they mean for the reader:

"Women are paid 10% less than men" could be:

  • "Women work for free 35 days of the year"

  • "Women face an unannounced 10% tax on salaries"

  • "Pay gap reality: men can fund 3 luxury holidays a year"

For the beer example:

  • "You can now afford 50 fewer beers a year"

3. Explore Different Angles

Don't get tunnel vision! Your data might have multiple interesting stories to tell. Some ways to unearth these different angles are:

  • Make a pivot table and rearrange your data to see if you can spot something you didn't before

  • Use chatGPT / Claude to pull out interesting facts (even if they're not usable, they can spark ideas)

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