Something That's Been Bugging Me

[drplokta]

All the (UK) press coverage of the impending Californian electoral debacle says that California has the fifth biggest economy in the world (or would, if it were an independent nation). But the UK is the fourth largest economy in the world, and France is fifth, and there's barely a gnat's whisker of difference between them. So does California really squeeze into the tiny gap, or are the journos all just copying someone else's mistake?

Comments

[redbird]

I'm sure they're all copying each other, but those sorts of number games are always weird: for example, they assume that California is sliced out and then treat the rest of the US as a single economy. Like the signs saying "Welcome to Brooklyn, 4th largest city in the USA", which pretend that Brooklyn didn't unite with New York in 1898 but that Queens and Staten Island did.

[numbat.livejournal.com]

I've long assumed newspeople use phrases like this because they give the story a factual tone rather than because they're proveably accurate.