They’re little mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless.
A recently updated Washington Post infographic that is seeing renewed interest this week shows that Mike Rogers and Ryan Zinke are still sitting members of Congress.
They are not.
The Michigan Republican retired from the House after the Nov. 2014 elections. He appears from time-to-time on CNN to offer national security analysis. Zinke, for his part, left Congress shortly after he was nominated last year to serve as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
The Washington Post graphic, which was published originally on June 12, 2016, and updated this week after the Nevada slayings, lists which current members of Congress have received donations from the National Rifle Association.
The article is titled: “Has your U.S. Congress person received donations from the NRA?”
“Since 1998, the National Rifle Association has donated $3,533,294 to current members of Congress. Explore below to see how much money has been donated to members of Congress in your state,” it reads [emphasis added].
The article explained that its methodology is based on, “Contribution data … from the 1998 through 2016 Congressional cycles” and that it doesn’t “include individual expenditures and communication costs.”
Interestingly enough, the Rogers and Zinke mistakes aren’t even a first for the Post’s NRA infographic.
It has already published two updates. The first reads, “Update: Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) was listed as receiving a $1,000 donation, but he did not accept it. Additionally, Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) donated both of the contributions he received in 2012 and 2016 to various funds.”
The second reads, “Correction: A previous version of this graphic stated sitting members of Congress received $2,996,519 in donations. The correct number was $3,781,803 (in 2016). Several members of Congress had incorrect titles. All titles and figures have been updated.”
They’ve yet to add a third and fourth update noting that Rogers and Zinke no longer serve in Congress.
There’s much more that can be said about the data, and much more that can be said about which groups donate the most to lawmakers. But those are separate points for a separate article, which we’ll get to later.
For now, we just wanted to note that there are additional errors in the Post’s widely-shared infographic.
