[BurningFrog]

The worst are the money units! Instead of writing "40 millions dollars", they often omit the number, like "millions of dollars".

This means they only use three values: millions, billions, and thousands.

My best guess for why is that it's a way to not be wrong. If you print "40 millions", and it turns out to be 39, you've lied, which is considered far more bad than being vague.

[beAbU]

In a local publication I follow they always round up or down to make the article easier to read. Sometimes they'll prefix the number with an "about" or "roughly" or "nearly" or whatever.

The actual number (if it's available as a fact) will be printed in the article somewhere, but headings, pull quotes and other call-outs will have some rounded number.

For example, recent article's first paragraph:

"Justice Minister Thembi Simelane took a loan of more than half a million rand from a company that brokered unlawful investments into VBS Mutual Bank by the Polokwane Municipality while she was mayor of the city in 2016. Pauli van Wyk explains what happened."

Further down in the article the "half a million rand" is revealed to be R575,600

[nkrisc]

> If you print "40 millions", and it turns out to be 39, you've lied

That’s not what lying is. To tell a lie is to intentionally state as fact something you know to be false.

Being wrong isn’t lying.

[not2b]

The number is being reported accurately, but with only one digit of significance. Rounding 39 to 40 isn't lying and isn't deceitful.

[lazide]

What about being so negligent in checking your facts that any reasonable person would know they’re wrong, but continuing forward anyway?

[nkrisc]

Can’t really say based on only that.

[throwanem]

Only a fabrication if it can't be sourced; otherwise, a source was wrong and you run a correction. When you don't have a number you're willing to point to even that far, that's when you leave it out entirely.

[Denvercoder9]

> My best guess for why is that it's a way to not be wrong.

It's also often used to make things seem better or worse than they actually are. "Thousands of dollars" sounds like it's far more than for example $2,108.