You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
+1.15
You heard that Russian news, right? That story of how Russia interfered in American politics? If you’re thinking about Russian interference in the election of Donald Trump, you may watch MSNBC; if you’re thinking about Mueller’s charges about the White House campaign’s collusion, you may watch CNN; and if your mind goes to Uranium or Hillary Clinton or the Dossier, yeah, you watch Fox News, right? Talk of the “Dossier” was 1.15 standard deviations above the mean on Fox, just one finding from an analysis of the most common words used on the three cable news networks in what may be my favorite FiveThirtyEight politics story of the year. [FiveThirtyEight]
10 ISIS news items per day
Turns out the fall of Raqqa really put a dent into ISIS’s media strategy. Since the Islamic State lost most of its territory, media items from ISIS channels have dropped to 10 items per day from about 30 items per day, according to watchers of the wannabe nation’s propaganda outlets. [NPR]
22 percent
Percentage of Americans who are spiritual, but not religious, according to a new PRRI survey. Compare that to the 100 percent of guys you dated in college who identified as such. [PRRI]
90 percent
Percentage of the Japanese auto market that goes to Japanese automobile brands. Why that is — essentially, a superb dealer network that truly understands what Japanese consumers desire — is a major pickle for American manufacturers, who cant seem to break into the world’s third largest car market. [The Atlantic]
2020
Far too many companies have decided to adapt a “Vision 20/20” plan, according the research from the Wall Street Journal, as the upcoming year and the serendipitous connection to people seeing well has combined to a nearly perfect if overdone nomenclature for a five year plan. [The Wall Street Journal]
$105 billion
Broadcom is attempting to purchase Qualcomm for $105 billion. You may not know these companies off the top of your head, but it’s pretty likely the device you’re reading this on contains a chip manufactured by one of the two firms. [The New York Times]
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