Data reporting

Data reporting is the process of submitting data to authorities entrusted with compiling statistics. Accurate data reporting gives rise to accurate analyses of the facts on the ground; inaccurate data reporting can lead to vastly uninformed decisions based on erroneous evidence. When data is not reported, the problem is known as underreporting; the opposite problem leads to false positives.

Data reporting can be an incredibly difficult endeavor. Census bureaus may hire even hundreds of thousands of workers to achieve the task of counting all of the residents of a country. Teachers use data from student assessments to determine grades; cellphone manufacturers rely on sales data from retailers to point the way to which models to increase production of. The effective management of nearly any company relies on accurate data.

Poor data reporting leads to flawed information in the hands of decision-makers and journalists, especially when they fail to scrutinize the data and blindly trust the assertions of the data reporters. For example, American journalist Walt Hickey of FiveThirtyEight, a statistically-driven media website, attempted to determine the entrée item at McDonalds that provided the highest calorie count for the money. The mathematical techniques that he used (dividing the calorie total by the price) were flawless, as were the calorie counts, which McDonald's provides as the law requires and which serve as an example of accurate data reporting. However, when Hickey looked to collect data on prices at McDonald's, he relied on a website that in turn relied on accurate--and unpaid--data reporting from crowd-sourcing. The website's laughably inaccurate data (including the absurd assertion that a two-patty cheeseburger cost less than a one-patty cheeseburger), which went unscrutinized by the journalist Hickey, led to several blatantly false conclusions. Hickey eventually realized one of the data points was off and adjusted the price-per-calorie accordingly for that menu item, but failed to adjust any of the other figures in his article. As none of the site's editors (including noted statistician Nate Silver) caught the error, the inaccurate analysis remained and indeed still remains available online.