cherry picking

This chart showing the rise in American unemployment from 2008 to 2010 manipulates the x-axis in two ways.First of all, the scale is inconsistent,compressing the 15-month span after March 2009 to look shorter than the preceding six months.Using more consistent data points gives a different picture with job losses tapering off by the end of 2009.And if you wonder why they were increasing in the first place,the timeline starts immediately after the U.S.'s biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression.These techniques are known as cherry picking.