Jernalism!

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Mongrel
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Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Sat Jul 05, 2014 6:50 pm

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Mongrel
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:40 pm

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Okay class, do you think there's anything wrong with this graph?
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Blossom » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:29 pm

Yes, they did a typo and used a period instead of a comma, but the intent is clear from context and that's a pretty minimal thing?
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:22 pm

I think he means that putting 1972 after 2014 is confusing if you just glance at the graph and don't read the caption.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:39 pm

Ding ding ding.

The period is a minor (but funny) issue. The real bullshit is the sneaky sensationalist way the graph might make people assume that 2014 is the most lethal year for air travel in decades.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby patito » Fri Jul 25, 2014 7:08 pm

The graph is actually pretty well labeled though, and it's not like they use tiny text for the "compared to worst year on record: 1972". As opposed to other confusing graphs we've seen before, the moment I saw this one I thought we had it pretty well compared to 1972.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:07 pm

Additional thoughts from a friend:

It's weird because not only is it needlessly confusing, it also provides less information than the natural way of presenting that information (simply showing a graph of air travel deaths for all years 1972-2014.) Even once you get past the confusion, this graph is irritating in how it fails to provide context. Was there a bunch of huge plane catastrophes in 1972 I'd forgotten about? Was there just a gradual decline as safety standards improved? There's no way to tell.


I get that on the surface it seems fine. "Look! 1971 has a slightly darker shade of red and everything!" The effect here is subtle, but I think this is a case where Hanlon's Razor should not necessarily be invoked without scrutiny.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby patito » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:57 pm

It's only sensationalism if the intent is to make the year 1972 look way more dangerous for air travel than it really was, even according to your friend's logic. The graphic is honestly not hard to read, and it's set next to the year 2014 cause the entire point of the graph is to show that in the year 2014 it's way safer to air travel, which is true. In no way does it sneakily suggest 2014 is the most dangerous.

Like you have stuff like the DB cooper case in 1971 were a dude hijacked a plane for ransom money and got away with it, and then you had a bunch of guys copycatting him over the next couple of months or years. And then you had god knows what other plane accidents by virtue of our airplane technology and safety probably not being quite as good as it is today.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby sei » Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:41 pm

Being that people have this obnoxious tendency to not read, I'm with Mongrel on this. Putting 1972 on the right is bad design to the point of potentially misleading a skimmer.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:53 pm

I mean, I just linked to the story the other day about people misreading 1/3 as less than 1/4.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby sei » Sat Jul 26, 2014 1:01 am

Hey, quantitative reasoning is a different skillset from reading comprehension...or reading at all.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Sun Jul 27, 2014 1:08 pm

Yeah, I'd put it on the far left and make it a different color -- not just a darker shade of red but something that really distinguishes it. And probably use some sort of symbol -- a line, a jagged tear effect -- indicating the gap between it and the next item.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Classic » Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:26 pm

I'm guessing that the article wants to invite easy comparison to the current year though.
I feel like if you're in print you're professionally obligated to trust your audience to be willing to read infografix.

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby IGNORE ME » Sun Jul 27, 2014 7:52 pm


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sei
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby sei » Sun Jul 27, 2014 9:36 pm

Classic wrote:I'm guessing that the article wants to invite easy comparison to the current year though.
I feel like if you're in print you're professionally obligated to trust your audience to be willing to read infografix.


http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-use ... n-the-web/
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-lit ... sers-read/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/ser ... story.html
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Fri Aug 08, 2014 4:52 pm

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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Wed Sep 03, 2014 11:31 am

Sidney Crosby is not in jail

Fact-checking seems to be optional for some newspapers these days.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby beatbandito » Wed Sep 03, 2014 6:11 pm

We really need to stop living in a world where the Washington Post is correcting 'journalists'.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Mongrel » Wed Sep 03, 2014 6:18 pm

My favourite part about the story is how you see that what happened is some moron read a press release too quickly and got way too excited.

And then probably made a bunch of stuff up.
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Re: Jernalism!

Postby Thad » Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:10 pm

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For fuck's sake, CNN.

(via the Telegraph)

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