You make a fair point. I'm happy to accept that colloquially when someone says "better than average" they mean "better than the median" but it's when an article, such as this, uses strong language like "[it's a] statistical impossibility" that it irks me, because that's a definitive factual statement that's not true (or, at best, not well defined enough to be meaningful).
Statistics are so often abused that rigour is more than just a matter of pedantry. Perhaps if journalists stopped having such a loose relationship with statistics we'd all be better off.
Statistics are so often abused that rigour is more than just a matter of pedantry. Perhaps if journalists stopped having such a loose relationship with statistics we'd all be better off.