WDR apparently manipulated statistics - users no longer believe in coincidence

Astrid Lund - Betty MacDonald fan club organizer: Anyone who thinks evil of this is a scoundrel!-------------------------------- Comic show WDR apparently manipulated statistics - users no longer believe in coincidence Editorial staff • 19 million • 2 minutes reading time On Monday, there was a scandal in the ARD program "Hart aber fair" with presenter Luis Klamroth. Viewers noticed false statistics on social networks - it is not the first time that a public broadcaster has attracted attention with something like this. The statistics were about approval of rejections at the borders. According to a survey by infratest dimap, 57 percent of Germans are in favor of rejections, while 33 percent are against them. But the graphic displayed in the background shows a distorted representation. Many accuse WDR of manipulation. Graphic showing approval or rejection of rejections is manipulated The 57 percent bar is only a little longer than the 33 percent bar. In reality, however, the second bar should be just over half of the other, not so close to it. Users on Twitter/X had corrected the ratio in the meantime, thereby showing how seriously wrong the graphic is. Users on Twitter/X cannot explain how such an error could happen other than that it was deliberately manipulated. "Unfortunate isolated case. We regret the glitch and have corrected something online somewhere...", writes one of the users ironically. Others are even more critical of WDR. Users no longer believe in coincidences - there have already been similar cases In the past, the public broadcaster has made similar errors. A few months ago, an ARD election diagram showed the AfD, despite 17 percent of voters, on the same level as the Greens with 11 percent and lower than the SPD with 15 percent. When editing a graphic, it is quite possible that such errors can occur if it is created manually - which would be at least unusual - but the graphic designers should be trained to check the relationship between the statistics again. The fact that such errors then occur again despite similar mishaps means that many, at least on social networks, no longer believe that they were accidents. At the same time, presenter Klamroth is also being criticized for claiming on the show that crimes committed by foreign citizens could theoretically also have been committed by "Australian exchange students". And this despite the fact that the BKA's figures with the nationalities are public and look different. WDR reacts to allegations - deliberate manipulation is ruled out A spokesperson for WDR has now given BILD a classification. "In fact, all of the numerical values ​​in the graphic are correctly displayed. However, the length of the bars does not exactly correspond to the respective percentage value," he says. Unfortunately, the editors missed the inaccuracy. The facts were nevertheless conveyed correctly, said the spokesperson. Deliberate manipulation can be ruled out.