Flying for Thanksgiving

This is a piece from a few years ago, but the New York Times cleverly brought it to the front of their Upshot page. And it seemed just so appropriate. Many of you are likely travelling today—I’m not, I’m headed to work—and many of you will be driving or taking the train. But some will be flying. But to and from where?

If only it captured other travel data
If only it captured other travel data

The map has some nice features that allow you to selectively few particular cities. Philadelphia has relatively few travellers by air, but that’s probably because places in the Northeast are more easily accessible by road or rail.

Chicago also has relatively few travellers, though more than Philadelphia. I would posit that is because most people are not flying to visit their relatives, but rather driving to places in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Indiana.

No post tomorrow, because I intend on sleeping in. But you can expect something on Friday.

Credit for the piece goes to Josh Katz and Quoctrung Bui.

How to Choose the Match to Broadcast

I was reading the Sunday paper yesterday and whilst I normally skip the sports section, especially during baseball’s offseason, this time a brightly coloured map caught my attention. Of course then I had to read the article, but I am glad that I did.

On Sunday the New York Times ran a print piece—I mean I assume I can find it online (I did.)—about CBS chooses which American football matches to air in the country’s markets. It is a wee bit complicated. And if you can find it, you should read it. The process is fascinating.

But I want to quickly talk about the design of the thing. Remember how I said a map caught my attention. That was pretty important, because the map was not the largest part of the article. Instead that went to a nice big photo. But the information designer I am, well, my eyes went straight to the map below that.

The story dominated the section page
The story dominated the section page

There is nothing too special about the map in particular. It is a choropleth where media markets are coloured by the game being aired yesterday. (The piece explains the blackout rules that changed a few years ago from what I remember growing up.)

But then on the inside, the article takes up another page, this time fully. It runs maps down the side to highlight the matches and scenarios the author discusses, reusing the same map as above, but because this is an interior page, in black and white. It probably looks even better online as they likely kept the colour. (They did. But the maps are smaller.)

To have that much space in which to design an article…
To have that much space in which to design an article…

Overall, I really enjoyed the piece and the maps and visuals not only drew me into the piece, but helped contextualise the story.

Credit for the piece goes to Kevin Draper.

Repealing the Individual Mandate

While I am still looking for a graphic about Zimbabwe, I also want to cover the tax reform plans as they are being discussed visually. But then the Senate went and threw a spanner into the works by incorporating a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate. “What is that?”, some of you may ask, especially those not from the States. It is the requirement that everyone have health insurance and it comes with tax penalties if you fail to have coverage.

Thankfully the New York Times put together a piece explaining how the mandate is needed to keep premiums low. Consequently, removing it will actually only increase the premiums paid by the poor, sick, and elderly. The piece does this through illustrations accompanying the text.

Exiting the pool
Exiting the pool

Overall the piece does a nice job of pairing graphics and text to explain just why the mandate, so reviled by some quarters, is so essential to the overall system.

Credit for the piece goes to Haeyoun Park.

Why So Many Mass Shootings?

Well, the data speaks for itself. I wanted to use this screenshot, however, to show you the story because I think it does a fantastic job. Without having to read the article, the image encapsulates what is to come in the article.

Just the visual impact of the outlier
Just the visual impact of the outlier

That said, there are a few other scatter plots worth checking out if the topic is of interest. And the explanation of the data makes all the more sense.

But I really loved the impact of that homepage.

Credit for the piece goes to Max Fisher and Josh Keller.

Whom the Tax Reforms Will Benefit Most

Yesterday the New York Times published a piece looking at the potential impacts of the proposed tax reforms on Americans. Big caveat, not a lot has been detailed about what the reforms entail. Instead, much remains vague. But using the bits that are clear, the Tax Policy Centre has explored some possible impacts and the Times has visualised them.

RIch do richly
RIch do richly

I like the opening graphic, though all are informative, that cycles through various proposals. It highlights which group benefits most from the proposals. The quick takeaway is that while all would moderately benefit, the rich do really well.

Credit for the piece goes to Ernie Tedeschi.

Bump Stocks and Automatic Weapons

Well news definitely happened whilst your author was on holiday. So today we look at an informative piece from the New York Times that compares the weapons fire from the Las Vegas shooting to that of Orlando and a fully automatic weapon.

This piece makes good use of both audio and motion graphics to show how the bump stock makes a semi-automatic rifle more like what we might call a machine gun. It also includes some nice illustrations that demonstrate how the stock does what it does.

Eerie hear it
Eerie hear it

From an audio standpoint, I do want to point out that the designers made a wise decision in opting not to use authentic sounds. Instead they chose an abstracted sound, allowing the user to focus on the rapidity and steadiness of the sound.

Credit for the piece goes to Larry Buchanan, Evan Grothjan, Jon Huang, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas, Adam Pearce, Karen Yourish, C.J. Chivers, and Thomas Gibbons-Neff.

Arctic Sea Ice Levels Continue to Decline

You may recall how over two years ago I posted about a piece from the New York Times that explored the levels of Arctic sea ice. It showed how the winter sea ice of 2015 was the lowest level ever recorded. Well last week the Times updated that piece with new data. And instead of the static graphic we enjoyed last time around, this time the piece began with a nice animation. It really helps you see the pattern, so you should click through and check out the whole piece.

Go hit play and you'll see the trend
Go hit play and you’ll see the trend

But this isn’t just a visually top heavy piece. No, the remainder of the article continues to explore the state of Arctic sea ice through a number of other charts and maps.

Credit for the piece goes to Nadja Popovich, Henry Fountain, and Adam Pearce.

The Cassidy-Graham Healthcare Bill

I meant to post this yesterday, but accidentally saved it as a draft. So let’s try this again.

Yesterday the New York Times published a print piece that explored how the Cassidy-Graham bill would change the healthcare system. This would, of course, be another attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare. And like previous efforts, this bill would do real damage to the aim of covering individuals. We know the dollar amounts in terms of changes to aid given to states, but in terms of the numbers of people likely to lose their coverage, that would have to wait for a CBO score.

Hyperlinked to the online version of the article
Hyperlinked to the online version of the article

The graphic makes really nice use of the tall vertical space afforded by two columns. (You can kind of see this too in the online version of the article.) At the beginning of the article, above the title even, are two maps that locate the states with the biggest funding gains and cuts. I wonder if the two maps could have been combined into one or if a small table, like in the online version, would have worked better. The map does not read well in the print version as the non-highlighted states are very faint.

The designer chose to repeatedly use the same chart, but highlight different states based on different conditions. This makes the small multiples that appear below the big version useful despite their small size. Any question about the particular length can be referenced in the big chart at the top.

With the exception of the maps at the top of the piece, this was a great piece that used its space on the page very well.

Credit for the piece goes to Haeyoun Park.

Burning Out the Rohingya

For years the Rohingya people, largely Muslim, in Burma (also known as Myanmar) have faced persecution from the majority Buddhist Burmese to the point that they are not considered citizens. Over the last several weeks, the Burmese government has reacted to assaults against civil authorities by armed Rohingya groups by burning villages wholesale. Burma denies it, occasionally going so far as to say that the Rohingya have in fact burned their own villages.

Sure.

The New York Times had an article on the Rohingya crisis, which if it is not already is now perilously close to being ethnic cleansing. Online, an article offered more, comparing satellite views of villages before and after their burning to the ground.

Before and after
Before and after

This week global leaders are meeting in New York at the UN General Assembly. Undoubtedly and rightly they should discuss issues like North Korea’s two programmes, one of developing nuclear weapons and the other of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. But, hopefully they will not be silent on this issue.

Credit for the piece goes to Sergio Peçanha and Jeremy White.

Where to Site Amazon’s HQ2

One of the stories I am interested to work on visualising in that mythical land of free time is a comparison of potential host cities for Amazon’s recently announced HQ2, a second corporate headquarters. In the meantime, I read this piece from the Times that attempted to decide for them.

Where oh where…
Where oh where…

I have some qualms with it, first that it excludes other North American cities—I would not be surprised to see Toronto win the headquarters. I have doubts that Mexico City would work, but it is possible. But my biggest problems are with the exclusionary nature of the selection. That is, within this set, cities that have x. Of the cities that have x, the cities that have y, and so on and so forth.

Personally I suspect Amazon will be looking at which cities not only fit the most requirements, but also which cities will ultimately give them the best business deal. And that I think is a very difficult to describe category.

But it is fun to try.

Credit for the piece goes to Emily Badger, Quoctrung Bui, and Claire Cain Miller.