Tag: charting

  • Baselines Are Important

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week the Washington Post published a fascinating article on the data visualisation work of the Donald Trump media campaign. In my last job I frequently harped on the importance of displaying the baseline and/or setting the baseline to zero. When you fail to do so you distort the data. But maybe that is the point…

  • UK Performance at the Olympics

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    Brendan Barry
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    The Olympics are over and Team GB did rather well, coming in second in the medals table with 27 gold medals, more than they won back in 2012 when they hosted the Olympics. (See my piece four years ago where a colleague of mine and I accurately predicted the UK’s total medal count.) Consequently the…

  • Bye Bye, Yahoo

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Happy Monday, all. Some big news stories going on today, but I wanted to take a look at this piece from the New York Times. They report on the sale of Yahoo to Verizon for almost $5 billion via a piece that takes short written analysis and blends it with clear and concise charting. The…

  • Covering Terrorism

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week we witnessed the lorry attack in Nice, France. This week we have the axeman attack on a German train. Does anybody note, however, the recent terror attacks in Dhaka, Bangladesh? Probably not, according to this insightful piece from FiveThirtyEight. They took a look at journalism’s coverage of terror attacks and whether there are…

  • Expensive Wines

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Another Monday, another week, another post. But this week we will try to get by without any more Brexit coverage. So what better way to cure a hangover than with more booze? So let’s start with some fancy wine. I meant to post this piece a little while back, but yeah that unmentionable thing occurred.…

  • Comparing the Brexit Results Designs: Part 3

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last one of these critiques—I promise. Earlier this week I looked at the New York Times’ coverage and the BBC’s coverage. Well, today I want to examine the Guardian’s coverage of the Brexit vote results. This piece differs the most from the preceding work and it starts right from the top, literally. I am not the biggest fan of the…

  • Critiquing Brexit Results Designs: Part 2

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    So now it is two weeks since the Brexit vote. Yesterday, I looked at the results designs from the New York Times. Today I want to take a look at those of the BBC. Not surprisingly the two share in the use of choropleth maps; the choice makes a lot of sense. People vote within…

  • Predicting the Electoral College

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Well the Democratic DC primaries were last Tuesday and Hillary Clinton won. So now we start looking ahead towards the July conventions and then the November elections. Consequently, if a day is an eternity in politics we have many lifespans to witness before November. But that does not mean we cannot start playing around with…

  • Not All Charts Are Necessary Part 2

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    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Monday I examined a chart from the BBC that in my mind needlessly added confusing visual components to what could have been a straight table. So here we take a look at some other options that could have been used to tell the same story. The first is the straight forward table approach. Here I…

  • World Income

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    Brendan Barry
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    Over the weekend I found myself curious about the notion of a growing global middle class. So I dug up some data from the Pew Research Center and did some analysis. The linked piece here details that analysis. I go into more detail than just a map. Hopefully you enjoy the piece and find the…