How a figure travels
Chapter 2 follows three figures backwards to the documents they came from. Each is drawn here as a chain, oldest first, showing what each document did to the figure: kept it whole, hedged it, stated it flat, cut a range to one end, or dropped the caveat that came with it.
Whole, with its range or caveatHedged or disputedStated flat, or a part made the wholeA much lower figureA numeral that only looks like the same figureNo figure, or not held
An arrow between documents is drawn only where the chapter states the link. Where it cannot show one, none is drawn, and that is part of what the chain shows.
Read the three chains as lists
Sixty per cent of the Syrian economy
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27 April 2011
Financial Times, Peel and Fielding-Smith
controls parts of the economy
No figure in it
The chapter: There is no 60 per cent in it.
-
21 November 2017
Salon Syria, interview with Joseph Daher
nearly 60 percent
The figure, hedged
The chapter: The hearsay is declared in the same breath as the figure.
-
21 December 2017
SyriaUntold, Joseph Daher, with endnotes
No figure in it
the same author, a month after Salon Syria, interview with Joseph Daher
The chapter: The 60 per cent is not in it.
-
24 December 2019
Al Jazeera
up to 60 percent
The figure, hedged
The chapter: Two hedges in one clause.
-
6 May 2020
Middle East Institute, Danny Makki
a staggering 60 percent
The figure, stated flat
The chapter: The fourth is the one that states it flat.
-
6 May 2020
Karam Shaar, a post
Perhaps 6%?
A much lower figure
replies to Middle East Institute, Danny Makki
The chapter: the first is a reply to the second and says so in its opening line
-
11 May 2020
Asharq Al-Awsat, Ibrahim Hamidi
around 7%
A much lower figure
The chapter: an unnamed former official's 7 per cent of 2006, quoted by a named reporter
-
19 May 2020
Middle East Eye
around 60 percent
The figure and its denial together
The chapter: The claim and its denial are in one sentence, separated by a comma.
I cannot show that any of the four instances above descends from it, and none of them cites it.
Twenty-three point six billion dollars
-
30 November 2011
Sarah Freitas, a blog post on the Task Force site
a loss of US$1,048 for every Syrian citizen
One end of the range only
The chapter: So the derivation was done by an author of the report, on a third organisation's website, and reproduced in a release, and it is nowhere in the report.
-
1 December 2011
Global Financial Integrity, press release
US$23.6 billion
One end of the range only
quotes Sarah Freitas, a blog post on the Task Force site
The chapter: The range that Table 9 publishes in two adjacent columns is, in the release, a single number.
-
December 2011
Global Financial Integrity, the report, Table 9
US$15,288 million
Both ends of the range
The chapter: Both are in the same table, in adjacent columns, under a heading that names them both.
-
Undated
In circulation
US$23.6 billion stolen from Syria
Renamed as theft
travels from Global Financial Integrity, press release
The chapter: It is naming a mixed aggregate after one of its ingredients, and after the smaller of its two halves.
So the sequence is blog post, then press release, then the world, and the report the figure is attributed to did not yet exist in public when the attribution began.
One hundred and four
-
Undated
US State Department, country report for calendar year 2010, undated
five billion Syrian pounds ($104 million)
The figure, with the publisher declining to endorse it
The chapter: The second and third sentences are the document declining to endorse the figure in the first
-
Undated
In circulation
Official corruption in Syria was US$104 million
The caveat dropped
travels from US State Department, country report for calendar year 2010, undated
The chapter: An announcement becomes a measurement, and the reporting institution's own caveat is dropped
-
Undated
Central Organization for Financial Control, report on the 2022 financial year
Not held: the document this book could not obtain
The chapter: So I have the original and the translation, and not the report both of them describe.
-
13 April 2023
Syria TV
104 billion old Syrian pounds, equivalent to US$13.7 million
The same numeral, a different unit
reports Central Organization for Financial Control, report on the 2022 financial year
The chapter: Syria TV published on 13 April 2023 at ten past three in the afternoon, Damascus time
-
14 April 2023
The Syrian Observer, a translation
US$13.7 million
The same numeral, a different unit
translates Syria TV
The chapter: The Syrian Observer translated and edited that report
Two figures share a numeral, do not share a unit, and would make a series if they were not converted.
Every figure and sentence on this page is the approved chapter’s, and the page will not build if one leaves it. A treatment names what the chapter reports the document doing; it is not a judgement of the people who wrote it.