STATS began life in 1993 as an attempt to point out that statistical knowledge was essential to understanding the world; and as we relied on the news media for so much knowledge about the world, it was vital that journalists understood how to interpret statistics and report them accurately. Hence, the name of our newsletter: VitalStats Scroll forward to 2004 and STATS had become an affiliate of George Mason University; the newsletter had become a website, STATS.org. […] and here we are, with the third incarnation of STATS, as a collaboration between the American Statistical Association and Sense About Science USA.