Ally McCoist joins STV
We were very pleased with the coverage of our latest Panelbase poll on Monday’s edition of Scotland Tonight. A nice introductory package showed some lingering shots of our front page and logo, and the poll findings were used as a jump-off for an interesting debate between Dennis Canavan and Ian Davidson.
It takes more than a bit of flattery to make us take our eye off the ball, though.
Our more alert viewers won’t need to read any further. But if it’s a wee bit early in the morning for you, let us help you out with a smidgeon of deft picture-editing.
Apparently 37 is more than five times as big a number as 17 now. (5 x 17 is 85.)
And seemingly 37 plus 17 (54) is now a smaller number than 45.
This sort of thing really isn’t on. Graphics editors will doubtless say “Oh, but we have to exaggerate things to make it visually clear!” But that’s not making the reality clear, is it? That’s distorting the reality so that it presents an quite drastically untrue picture of the relative population shares, and in particular the size of the undecided vote that’s up for grabs – especially bad when it’s the specific topic of the discussion.
It doesn’t have to be motivated by malice. We’re not saying STV’s graphics team are dastardly evil Unionists. It could just be that they’re horribly misguided, or presented a massively skewed impression through honest human error. But it still won’t do.
Above is how the graph SHOULD have looked, with the bars in the correct proportions. It creates a rather different feeling about how much the outcome is up for grabs, doesn’t it? It’s not confusing or anything. Most of the change happens in the blue bar on the right, where there was lots of quiet space.
So much so, in fact, that we’ve got plenty of room to show what 37 plus 17 actually looks like, were we to add the undecided voters to the Yes ones. Which makes the graph pretty eye-catching, by showing just how much is at stake as the two sides fight over the Don’t Knows who’ll ultimately determine Scotland’s future.
So why not do it that way? Why get it wrong for no good reason? Was the normal graphics person off sick or something, and they had to just grab the first guy passing the Glasgow STV studio to cobble a barchart together at short notice?
Don’t give up the day job, Ally.
Rev. I have to say you are doing a bit of Ally yourself. Why has the blue almost halved from figure 4 from to figure 5?
Or is it one of those optical illusion thingys.
Keef
SHUSH.
(Had spotted, and fixed.)
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Readers of Edward R. Tufte’s book “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” will be familiar with the manipulation of the graphic. Is the % represented by height or area? Is the origin at 0?
See also More risk/less fear v Less risk/more fear.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000gG
farrochie
Saw a *really nasty* advert for RBS today on the way into work today.
The tagline was RBYES, in blue and white. They were advertising that they accept most morgage applications they recieve or something like that.
Looks to me like they’re trying to muddy the waters for the YES campaign – same imagery, a big white YES on blue.
Illy
Illy – or they’re latching onto the mood of the nation…?
Doug Daniel
@Illy-
Businesses won’t ape the Yes imagery unless they know it’s appealing/positive.
Have you seen the Lidl banners in their car parks?
Similar exploitation of the distinctive blue and white, and slogans like ‘Scotland – We’re With You All the Way’, and ‘Have You Got The Message Yet?‘ (I’m guessing those from memory – if they’re accurate then that proves the effectiveness of such material.)
Ian Brotherhood
My favourite bit of the whole Scotland Tonight package was them putting “The Gnat’s Chuff” on screen for several seconds. That cracked me up.
Incidentally, graphical mistakes aside, will the fact Scotland Tonight have decided to acknowledge Wings as a genuine and respectable voice in the debate perhaps put a stop to people levelling accusations of unionist bias at them? They’ve made mistakes in the past (getting caught up in the furore over the “top secret document” being the main one), but overall they’ve always been good eggs.
Doug Daniel
SHUSH.
Aye, just for a minute there I thought…
TBH Rev, some folk struggle with graphs, particularly when it comes to %’s and calculating these relatively, but the STV one is a joke.
scottish_skier
@llly
“Calm down dear its only a commercial!” Sorry I could not resist that! The RBYES was probably thought up by some add-man somewhere in London who doesn’t even know that there is a referendum next year. Sounds like the old “The bank that likes to say Yes” I cant even remember which bank used that slogan.
As for the graphics on Scotland Tonight. Well spotted Rev. I thought that they were on screen for such a short time that I barely noticed. Or more than likely it is me who is slow
The Man in the Jar
“‘Have You Got The Message Yet?‘ “
Surely “messages”?
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The RBYES ad made me look twice first time I saw it, but in a good way. The more visible the word is on the nation’s billboards the better as far as I’m concerned. RBS wouldn’t be using it if it was anything other than positive.
Dave Beveridge
Yawn…!! Slept in .. but off work today. Well done to get WoS’s profile raised. I expect lots of new ‘lurkers’ today, welcome!
What about YES on the lucozade bottles. Been on them in big bold letters for a year now. I buy a bottle every week just because of it.
call me dave
@ianbrotherhood
Should that not be “Have you got the messages?”
Edit. Damn you Rev. Stu!
The Man in the Jar
The graphs, lets not phaff about, this was manipulation and STV should be requested to reply why they did that, and demand an apology ! End of.
Les Wilson
Congratulations Rev on all the hard work which has got to being able to point out aspects of the detailed presentation on a uniquely non-mainstream media generated bombshell !
This kind of graphical “inaccuracy” is one of my bugbears also, however it is unfortunately commonplace in much of the media, as your McCoist graphic also shows. I dont believe on most occasions that it is deliberately intended to mislead, the use of “graphical representations” such as either “offset origin” or “inclusion of the variable name in the column (but with different colours for emphasis)” are usually just inapproprate use of a feature from someone who has more training on the artistic look rather than the impression conveyed. Or it may be limited knowledge about how different people can take in and interpret the same piece of information, however compared to many of the “textual misrepresentations” we have seen in the MSM in the past I think this is fairly minor. It is usually excused by saying that the numbers are also given, which is to some extent true – but that does mis the point.
With graphics and statistics you can attempt to show just about anything if you try hard enough. I think for now we should just be happy about this reaching the TV and some of the other more balanced than usual items in the MSM over the past few days.
For all that, I do agree that your final mock-up graphic does “tell the story” in a much better way … Great Job – Keep it Up !
Gin
Woken up properly now and see the graph thing with brain engaged, that’s no mistake that’s manipulation. Still they are at it. But the news is out, which is the main thing.
call me dave
@Doug
“will the fact Scotland Tonight have decided to acknowledge Wings as a genuine and respectable voice in the debate perhaps put a stop to people levelling accusations of unionist bias at them?”
It’s a step, but until they stop loading pundit panels with Unionist commentators like Torrance, Linklater, Crichton, Gardham et al (without any representation from the other side) then the answer’s no. And let’s not forget they deemed Sarwar’s ignorant and obnoxious performance in the debate with DFM worthy of a ‘draw’!
Training Day
Rev. any chance of an update on just how many new readers clicked your website after last night and what the figures are at present?
Keef
My take is that the bottom parts of the bars are being used as labels. In other words the origin is at the foot of the label. If you look at it that light the proportions are about right.
TV graphics for current affairs shows are done at speed. Given more time the designer would likely have recognised the problem and done something about it.
Cockup, not conspiracy.
AllyPally
Look on the bright side, it’s publicity for Wings.
Somebody
“Rev. any chance of an update on just how many new readers clicked your website after last night and what the figures are at present?”
Don’t think I can get info that specific from Google Analytics, will have a dig later. But we had a very healthy day and picked up about a fortnight’s worth of new Twitter followers in three hours.
Rev. Stuart Campbell
D Danial STV always good eggs, is that they good eggs they use in the Bush Tucker Trials if thats whits called a debate bring on the LIMBO Dancers
ronnie andeson
To be fair to wee Ally, Jim Traynor probably got too excited with his crayons making those graphs up. Least he managed to stay within the lines this time.
As for Scotland Tonight, excellent coverage but surely its the first time anyone here has read the words Ian and Davidson and were still smiling!
Desimond
Rev – if you have any appetite left for trying to further cross-reference poll numbers you might want to see what you can pick out from this set of YouGov / Sunday Times data gathered over the whole UK in the same time period as your poll.
http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/i2bq55ay85/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-251013.pdf
Key aspect for me was the left hand side – figures broken down for Scotland ! Although at only 166 the sample size is clearly much smaller than your poll, it did stand out to me just how many times the figures for Scotland were at the most extreme away from the “UK Nom”. Plenty more to pick over, including attitudes on Leadership approval; Economy; Energy and Drugs Policy which might fill out some of the questions which the Wings poll uncovered.
My main impression from this data was that while some people may have been surprised or disappointed by some of the attitude answers in Scotland from the Wings Poll, that it is clear that on most of these topics that Scotland remains considerably more towards the “Social Good” side of the arguments than the rUK !
Would be good to know what you or the Prof. might see in a deeper analysis.
Gin
There are graphics, and then there are STV graphics.
It is just as well STV don’t make underpants, because they would be up to your chin.
Gillie
Maybe Scotland Tonight use the same scaling software as the BBC weather map http://youtu.be/egHXCF9Knn4
Dinnatouch
Yes Airdrie group sets up our stall outside RBS ( does that mean we dont have to put our YES banners up ) or ask them to put more in the windies HEHEHE
REV git STV telt if there useing your material its on the basis theres nae muckin about wie the product Ah mean who puts their hawn up a turkeys erse tae test the quality
ronnie andeson
“My take is that the bottom parts of the bars are being used as labels. In other words the origin is at the foot of the label. If you look at it that light the proportions are about right.
Cockup, not conspiracy.”
I made a very deliberate point of saying in the piece that it was entirely possible it was human error rather than anything sinister. But if the origin is the bottom of the label, the “37%” bar is more or less right, but the “17%” one is still quite significantly off.
Quick crude illustration resizing the 45% bar, including origin, in proportion:
(Also, if that’s what you’re doing it’s very bad practice, on the most graphic-design-day-one level, to separate the label and bar with a dark line.)
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Don’t think I can get info that specific from Google Analytics, will have a dig later. But we had a very healthy day and picked up about a fortnight’s worth of new Twitter followers in three hours.
It would be timely for folk to dig out more of those “AYE RIGHT” leaflets and scatter them around again - access the September 2013 archive for the printable version. Might as well strike for WoS while the iron’s hot!
Luigi
I had a failed attempt at Twitter on my phone last night. My pre-industrial brain went into meltdown.
I did however click on the WingsScotland Twitter logo at the top of the page. Something that I do quite often. I even managed to link to Grahamskis twitter feed. Absolutely hilarious what a deluded f***wit. The apoplectic rage was beyond belief. Comedy gold.
The Man in the Jar
Sorry for including the guff at the end of last post. Too many people posting just now to edit to correct it
Can’t think why so much activity on the site today
Gin
My take is that the bottom parts of the bars are being used as labels. In other words the origin is at the foot of the label. If you look at it that light the proportions are about right.
Mmmm, maybe. Does it work if you actually measure it? That would certainly explain the glaring anomaly as an innocent mistake. As you say, with a bit more time the designer might have noticed the problem.
Like I keep saying, Never attribute to malice….
Morag
“Rev – if you have any appetite left for trying to further cross-reference poll numbers”
Readers! For the LOVE OF GOD please don’t paste stuff in from Microsoft apps…
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Ah, posting too fast for me here. I see RevStu has analysed the alternative-origin idea, though I can’t say I actually understand his diagram completely.
It is kind of funny that every time someone makes a mistake, it always ends up looking better for Better No.
Morag
way o/t just saw this on bitter together site http://bettertogether.net/blog/entry/the-referendum-is-there-to-be-won-but-only-if-you-get-involved saying they were in Perth during the SNP conference and knocking on doors, anyone? leaflet? newspaper? I was in the town and live in Perth on those days and I didn’t see any sight of them.
tiderium
‘picked up about a fortnight’s worth of new Twitter followers in three hours.’
Have you come to terms with being classified as ‘mainstream’ yet
I’m quite sure I read somewhere last night that WoS had overtaken some MSM due to the fact that WoS was able to fund expensive polls.
Keef
‘grats Rev, it’s nice to see the Yes online presence being presented as something other than “vicious Cybernats” etc etc.
I really do wish the presenters would challenge people when they spout nonsense though. I know they might not get the best briefs, and I know the timeslots are limited, but still they get a decent enough wage that they could spare a few hours of a weekend to inform themselves if their network isn’t up to snuff in that regard, and surely it’s better a short timeslot be taken up by the presenter correcting misinformation -and thus ensuring news and current affairs shows fulfill their primary role of informing debate- than by some chump spouting nonsense unopposed.
Yodhrin
I have to agree with many of the other posts, it would be good for an explanation from STV just to remove any doubt that people might have as to why the graphics were shown the way they were.
Indy_Scot