Everything was created by numbers, weights and measures (Isaac Newton).
Never before have topics of every kind sparked so many divides — in the media, in political life, on social networks, in our social and family relationships.
This proliferation of opinions and oppositions is amplified by the exponential flow of information and by an increasingly complex world that lends itself to multiple interpretations.
Although figures are generally not enough to fully capture an issue, and although choosing which figures to use is itself a form of bias, they nonetheless help to bring objectivity to the analysis, broaden perspective, and enable comparison.
NumOnly’s purpose is thus to translate information into the language of numbers, keeping subjective or careless interpretation to a minimum.
But while figures don’t lie, liars sometimes figure (Jacques Duhamel).
That is why sources, always cited, are carefully selected for reliability and relevance. These sources may come from:
- public institutions, national or international,
- non-profit organizations or associations,
- general or specialized newspapers and magazines,
- national and international research and survey institutes,
- experts producing reports and analyses,
- encyclopedic sites.
The reliability of the information is systematically checked through consistency checks and cross-referencing across multiple sources.
When in doubt, the information is not published.
Topics are wide-ranging: the environment, societal issues, the internet, science, economics, geopolitics, sport, culture, opinion polls, the media…
Publications may:
- describe, in a few figures, the stakes and scope of an issue,
- compare situations between regions or countries,
- present trends over time,
- draw on opinion polls to gauge societal shifts,
- provide intrinsically numerical information: income, prices, indices, rates…
Articles are always tied to a current issue or a recent publication.
Format :
NumOnly content comes in three formats, suited to however much time you have:
- 5 Figures — five current topics, each summed up in one striking figure with a quick comparison over time or place. Read in under a minute.
- Compact — the essentials of a news story, under 300 words, built around 8 to 12 key figures.
- Analysis — a deeper dive into one topic, 400 to 800 words, 15 to 50 figures, with tables and charts.
Whatever the format, every article can be read and understood in a few minutes — and of course, since this is NumOnly, it always rests on figures that speak for themselves.
Don’t forget, NumOnly has the modest ambition of delivering to you, with synthesis, simplicity and rationality, the state of the world!
