Graph in latest Watchtower deliberately amended

dozy

Did anyone notice that the graph of publisher growth in the Jan 1st Watchtower has been deliberately "tweaked" to give the impression of higher growth in the period 2000 - 2010? I've tried to illustrate this by superimposing the actual graph line over the one from the Watchtower ( which is the narrower line in the graph.) The period up to 2000 exactly mirrors the actual figures but the artist has decided to edge up the last decade , for obvious reasons. According to my rather crude Excel spreadsheet they have roughly increased the figure at 2010 to 7.5 million publishers for graphical purposes rather than the reported 7.224 million.

Also , of course , by basing the graph on the reported numbers per decade ( 1970 / 80 / 90 etc ) they cover over the rapid pre-1975 growth and subsequent small decline in the late 70's.

Doubtless someone much more technical minded can do a better job of this , but at least it illustrates the point.

slimboyfat

Very interesting, it's slight, but apparently an intentional attempt to deceive.

Maybe they inserted the 2012 figures instead of 2010 thus producing a steeper graph.

dozy

It's intentionally dishonest to cover up an obvious slowing in the growth trend - there isn't any other explanation. I honestly wonder sometimes how the WT writers sleep at night.

slimboyfat

The average publisher figure for 2012 was 7,538,994, which seems to be exactly where the dot is.

So they've increased the steepness of the graph by putting the 2012 figure where the 2010 figure should be.

I guess it could just be a mistake.

factfinder

For some reason they have not yet mentioned anything about the figures for the 2013 SY.

They did not mention a new peak for the US at the agm, which they did in previous years, and they make no mention in the Jan.1 issue of the figures for 2013. True, they stopped publishing the chart in the w years ago, but I thought they'd include the new figures in this article.

The circulation for the w was updated though.

slimboyfat-I agree-it looks like an intentional attempt to decieve.

bohm

Lol, you got eagle eyes!

i dunno, if they can just double the years in a generation, why not add a few years to a decade?

bohm

"To speed up the incrase jehovah has made a decade 14 years and rising"

slimboyfat

Splane declared a few years ago that "Jehovah doesn't care about numbers because only eight people survived on the ark you know". Ever since then they've been playing down the statistics - removing them from the WT, then from the KM. Only the yearbook is left. I can see them stopping publishing the numbers altogether before they'd admit to a decline. Then they could draw up spurious graphs to their heart's content since there would be nothing to check them against.

jwfacts

Interesting find. It is in the January 15th study edition magazine.

I think they have done what SBF suggested, and used the 2012 numbers, since the line continues straight from 2000 to 2012. This is deceptive, since each other period was a 10 year span. They have also kicked the dotted lines up to be steeper than the previous period, to indicate that are predicting a higher growth rate from 2013 and beyond.

dozy

If they really wanted a graph that showed tremendous increase , they could always have used the number of partakers.

I'd like to think it was just an innocent mistake , but the WTBTS have such a bad record when it comes to selective figures and quotes. As soon as I saw the graph in the Watchtower , I immediately thought it looked a bit dubious , so surely lots of people must have been aware of the error.

Anyway aren't we always told about how everything is checked & double checked before it ends up in the magazines?

Graph in latest Watchtower deliberately amended

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