The overwhelming majority of the public will never directly consult a National Statistical Office (NSO) or communicate with it directly. For most citizens, the news media (newspapers, radio and television) provide their only exposure to official statistics. Through them, the NSO achieves its goal of informing the public of economic and social conditions to a degree it could not achieve with its own resources. Consequently, collaboration with the news media as the NSO's gatekeepers to the public is of great importance. As journalists frequently change assignments and as many of them usually have no formal training in statistics, providing a form of "education" in statistical literacy is an ongoing concern for the NSO. Similarly, making the NSO staff aware of the needs and requirements of journalists is an essential step in communicating effectively through the media. The paper will outline the various elements of the media relations program that Statistics Canada has developed over the years.
The CAUSE Research Group is supported in part by a member initiative grant from the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and Data Science Education