Question

Read the scenario and review the social media post.

A political group wants to sway public opinion about a new president. One member of the group posts this bar graph of unemployment rates on his social media account.

A bar graph titled Unemployment Rates shows percent on the y-axis and years on the x-axis. Each bar is labeled with a percentage.

A post by Abraham Ruiz reads, "After years of steady Feb numbers, unemployment at 6-year high under new administration." Below the text is a bar graph titled Unemployment Rates shows percent on the y-axis and years on the x-axis. Each bar is labeled with a percentage.

What technique is the group using to present data?

trolling
fact-checking
biasing
cherry-picking

Answer 1

cherry-picking

They're selectively showing/emphasizing particular data (e.g., one month's or a chosen subset) to make the administration look worse, rather than presenting the full, balanced dataset.