The rule of three

Great article by Rocky Agrawal about Google „not being evil“ by way of creativly counting in their Google+ statistics over at Venturebeat.com:

„This post on Google+ statistics is a billion* times better than any other post“

I recently had a conversation with a PR person about a chart his company had put out and my coverage of it. He pointed out that I called them on the correct interpretation of the chart. His defense was that if you read the precise definition that they gave with the chart, it was accurate. They didn’t lie. It wasn’t their fault that most journalists interpreted it wrong. He’s partly right — journalists need to do a better job of understanding statistics. But the chart was clearly designed to generate the kind of coverage it generated.

Journalists need to understand that PR material is always trying to lie to them.

And the rule of three is not only a good metric when it comes to punchlines.