ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how more is very rarely more in data-driven storytelling. It identifies the kind of statistics that work the hardest in storytelling. Controversially, it gives seven reasons why the Leave campaign’s “£350m a week to the NHS” from the 2016 EU Referendum in the U.K. was such an astute - if dishonest - piece of narrative by numbers.
The chapter offers guidelines on how to choose the best single statistic on which to build a core narrative - the so-called “killer stat” - and shows how to analyse and simplify the language you use. The purpose of all communication is to persuade some else to do something, and the less time people spend trying to understand what you’re saying, the more likely they are to assess the evidence you put forward.
