What’s the global data journalism community tweeting about this week? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from August 19 to 25 finds Bloomberg mapping the alarming degradation of the Amazon rainforest, Alyssa Fowers discussing variations in visualizing mass shootings and their corresponding impact on readers, Data Carpentry sharing tips for organizing data in spreadsheets, and Atlatszo visualizing the succession of Hungarian kings.
Amazon Rainforest on Fire
The Amazon rainforest is burning at an unprecedented rate that is alarming the global community. Bloomberg visualized the degradation of the forest including its monthly tree loss from 2015 to this year. The team also mapped the fires observed across Brazil’s national parks and indigenous lands in 2019 as well as highlighted the key drivers behind the deforestation. For more related stories, check Álvaro Valiño’s Twitter thread.
Here’s Where the Amazon Is Burning and Why It’s Going to Get Worse
Excellent primer from @business's graphics team and agricultural reporter #ActForTheAmazon
https://t.co/dn4f7VJsRF— Bruce Douglas (@bruceecurb) August 23, 2019
The Emotional Journey of Creating Anything
Data visualization expert Alberto Cairo just re-purposed an old but gold infographic for his Intro to Data Visualization and Infographics class at the University of Miami. Many of you will probably be able to relate to the emotional journey of creating anything great, from the initial feelings of “This is the best idea ever!” to “This sucks I have no idea what I’m doing” and back to “Wow.”
The #emotional journey of designing a great #DataVisualization, let's acknowledge it's not all #rational with @AlbertoCairo & his students = love it 😄 https://t.co/sIaWOBeLB7 pic.twitter.com/kvunP6zXWv
— Paul Laughlin (@LaughlinPaul) August 22, 2019
Visualizing Mass Shootings
Alyssa Fowers, a graduate student studying data visualization, wrote a blog post about the different ways to visualize mass shootings and their corresponding impact on readers. In particular, she dissects the use of bubble charts by Financial Times versus The Economist’s stacked bar chart, and commented that the latter packs more of an emotional punch. Read her thoughts here.
Quite agree. Accretion of tiny things (dots) is a powerful way of building bigger picture/showing concentrations – especially like ability to still interrogate individual dot and link to specific imagery. Used technique mapping Airbnb https://t.co/KDPOoOuG9w pic.twitter.com/wLXABFnkg5
— Dan Cookson (@danc00ks0n) August 20, 2019
Basic Data Organization in Spreadsheets
In order to be able to analyze data effectively from spreadsheets, one must first structure and clean the data in a way that the computer can interpret it. Data Carpentry prepared a lesson in the basics of organizing and formatting your data in spreadsheets.
Another favorite reference from @datacarpentry – common spreadsheet formatting problems: https://t.co/sRpiNcoM5m
— We are R-Ladies (@WeAreRLadies) August 21, 2019
Moscow Roadworks
At the 2019 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Herman Gref, chairman of the executive board of Sberbank, joked that Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin likes to “dig up the whole city.” There is some truth in that joke, as RBC would discover in official public data. More than 130 streets in the capital have been repaired two or more times over the past four years. (In Russian.)
Разрытие покажет: почему в Москве ремонтируют одни и те же улицы: https://t.co/suHuBVI7WP с помощью @ru_rbc
— Transparency Intl-Ru (@Transparency_ru) August 21, 2019
Succession of Hungarian Kings
The story of the succession of Hungarian kings is akin to an exciting and twisted adventure novel, complete with gruesome details. Atlatszo’s data team visualizes the family trees of past royals and presents a historic overview of how each ruler inherited the crown.
New interactive feature on the history of the throne and kings of Hungary. #ddj #dataviz #map https://t.co/zdbDla5jr2 pic.twitter.com/vIiB75P8JM
— atlo.team (@AtloTeam) August 19, 2019
Data Fellowship
ForSet is offering a Data Communication Fellowship that consists of a yearlong online mentorship program as well as a 3-week training in Tbilisi, Georgia. Fellows will be trained in data collection, data analysis, storytelling, information design, and more. Open to journalists who reside and work in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan. Apply here.
Want to improve your #DataJournalism? @ForSetGe will train 12 fellows in a three-week session in #Tbilisi, followed by yearlong online mentorship. Apply by Sept. 8.https://t.co/112OeqMuFc
— IJNet (@IJNet) August 21, 2019
Mapping Accidents in Berlin
Tagesspiegel’s earlier attempts to obtain official accident records from the police was unsuccessful, but fortunately, Germany’s Federal Statistical Office eventually released that data. The team analyzed the numbers and determined the most dangerous locations, mode of transportation, and times of the day.
Just found this great interactive map of all traffic incidents in Berlin from 2018.https://t.co/8TFpV7oxFK
tl;dr for non-german speakers:
144325 recorded incidents (average of 16 per hour) 🤯
13652 incidents introduced injuries
45 people died— Yves Van Goethem (@yvg) August 21, 2019
Six Strategies for Dataviz
A group of passionate designers, researchers, and engineers at Google came together in 2017 to create a comprehensive set of data visualization guidelines. Here are their basic six strategies for designing any chart. And here are more detailed guidelines.
These principles are clear and useful, not only for charts, but for all kind of information design: https://t.co/Grjayw7paj by @mslima
— Javier Zarracina (@JZarracina) June 28, 2019
Polish Senate Race
The next Polish parliamentary elections will be held on October 13 this year. Gazeta Wyborcza.pl took a look at the Poland Senate race — the safe seats and swing states — and makes some calculated predictions on what it would take to win. (In Polish.)
Swing states of Poland @gazeta_wyborcza https://t.co/69iShY5wzN#ddj #maps #election pic.twitter.com/QrWNc8UTgL
— Vadim Makarenko (@sardanapal) August 21, 2019
Thanks, once again, to Marc Smith of Connected Action for gathering the links and graphing them. The Top Ten #ddj list is curated weekly.
Eunice Au is GIJN’s program coordinator. Previously, she was a Malaysia correspondent for Singapore’s The Straits Times, and a journalist at the New Straits Times. She has also written for The Sun, Malaysian Today and Madam Chair.
For a look at Marc Smith’s mapping on #ddj on Twitter, check out this map.
