The story does not assert a trend or a bigger picture, so I don’t see that it needs to justify itself with data. In any case, data is the plural of anecdote, an

The story does not assert a trend or a bigger picture, so I don’t see that it needs to justify itself with data. In any case, data is the plural of anecdote, and even a single anecdote can hint at the contours of a bigger system. I think most people would find it hard to believe that a dead man could go undiscovered for a week in one of Manhattan’s most popular neighborhoods, especially with the presumed level of surveillance in NYC. Most people assume things are more orderly and connected — such as the city’s license plate readers cross-referencing the missing person reports — than the hodgepodge of systems that they usually are in reality