On a daily basis tons of news media articles are published including such annual comparisons per month, quarter, semi annual.
Often times this information is rather useless or even disinformation! What if e.g. last year's number was an aberration from normal or an extreme value or unique for some reason. Some journalists note this deviation from normal, but often without further analysis.
Much better would be comparisons to some normal value e.g. moving averages or monthly/quarterly,semiannual averages over several years etc. Practical suggestions: A 12 months moving average for monthly data and a 16 quarters moving average for quarterly data. You get the idea!
Given that it is now the second quarter of the 21st century with so many data sources and analytics easily available, this journalistic failure is even more difficult to excuse!
However, too many journalists are lazy or lack understanding!
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