Data Journalism Top 10: A New President, Trump’s Twitter Insults, Germany’s Elections, Flying Green

As Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, much of the international media coverage was focused on an inauguration like no other. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 18 to 24 found a Washington Post analysis of the president’s first address to the nation and a Bloomberg project visualizing the enhanced measures put in place to deal with concerns about security and the coronavirus.

Data Journalism Top 10: National Geographic Maps, Capitol Riots, Flu vs. Coronavirus, Happiness Index, Black Market Data

Scenes of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump storming the US Capitol building dominated news headlines and filled social media feeds last week. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from January 4 to 10 found Reuters producing a play-by-play summary of what happened, and FiveThirtyEight examining the stark difference in reaction by the authorities to the Capitol mob compared to Black Lives Matter protesters. Also in this edition, we feature National Geographic’s cartography archive, Data Crítica’s investigation into under-counting of Indigenous COVID-19 infections, and The Markup’s analysis of the impact of Facebook’s political ads.

My Favorite Tools with Russia’s Roman Anin

In the newest post of GIJN’s series “My Favorite Tools,” French-British journalist Olivier Holmey interviews Roman Anin, the 33-year-old founder and editor-in-chief of IStories, a nonprofit Russian investigative news site. Anin discusses how he has used import/export data from the UN, as well as encryption software and data cleaning applications, in his investigations.

Data Journalism Top 10: Hawaii’s Disappearing Beaches, Stolen Paintings, Investigating Disappearances, Herd Immunity Calculator

Hawaii’s scenery can be breathtaking, with cliff-rimmed white-sand beaches and surf-worthy waves. But our NodeXL #ddj mapping (Dec. 28-Jan. 3) found ProPublica highlighting dramatic erosion of the island state’s beaches over the past century. Also in this edition, we feature an interactive graphic to calculate the time to achieve COVID-19 herd immunity based on the US vaccination rate, a global vaccine distribution tracker, Federica Fragapane’s visualization of stolen paintings, and a compilation of 2020’s best data visualization lists.

Data Journalism Top 10 for 2020: COVID-19, Saving the Nile, Shape of Dreams, Visualizations for the Colorblind

For those unfamiliar with GIJN’s Top 10 Data Journalism roundup, each week we select the most popular data journalism items on Twitter. We do this by using NodeXL to map use of the terms #ddj and data journalism, and then add a bit of old-fashioned human curation to highlight the most compelling items. At the end of the year, we survey the entire period and pick the best from hundreds of tweets. This year — the year of the pandemic — in which the coronavirus dominated public conversation and news headlines, our mapping reflects that reality.

Data Journalism Top 10: Chocolate Box Audit, Vaccine Lineup, COVID-19 Antigen Testing, Scraping Is Not a Crime

As the United Kingdom begins its rollout of the first COVID-19 vaccine this week, the world is watching with bated breath. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 30 to December 6 found Bloomberg tracking the development of nine of the most promising vaccines around the world, The New York Times creating an interactive for Americans to establish where they are in the line before they can get vaccinated, and Spain’s El Pais examining the advantages of using antigen testing for COVID-19 infections. Meanwhile, ITV News’ Stephen Hull did a fun data analysis of the assorted chocolates in a Quality Street tin.

Data Journalism Top 10: Scented Candles, COVID Risk Simulator, Trump’s Final Regs, Sigma Awards

Are scented candles a casualty of the coronavirus crisis? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 23 to 29 found researcher Kate Petrova’s data analysis revealing that scented candles have suffered a blow in online reviews and a decrease in ratings, possibly linked to the coronavirus’ ability to affect people’s sense of smell. Elsewhere, Germany’s Zeit Online created a COVID-19 infection risk calculator, the COVID Tracking Project explained how holidays and weekends disrupt the recording and publishing of virus data, and Reuters analyzed the shortcomings of the coronavirus contact tracing system in England. Meanwhile, the Sigma Awards, which celebrate the world’s best data journalism, have opened for entries.

My Favorite Tools: Alberto Cairo on Data Visualization

For our series on journalists’ favorite tools, we spoke to Alberto Cairo, head of visualization at the University of Miami’s Institute for Data Science and Computing. Cairo shared several user-friendly tools and core principles to help investigative reporters shape their data visually to create new insights for audiences.

Data Journalism Top 10: Thanksgiving Dangers, Vaccine Tracker, Crosswords Diversity, Golf Swings, Facebook Fact-checks

Around the world, people are toning down their celebrations in a bid to mitigate spread of the coronavirus. The latest casualty: Thanksgiving. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 16 to 22 found FiveThirtyEight’s timely piece explaining the risk of COVID-19 transmission from even small Thanksgiving dinner gatherings. Also popular: The New York Times tracking the status of all vaccine trials in progress, and The Pudding analysis of race and gender in crossword puzzles from five major US news publications.

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