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.

How a Comic Series Reveals Heavy Metal Poisoning in Peru

The Peruvian investigative journalism outlet Convoca has been exploring what happens to people exposed to lead and other heavy metals. In its latest installment in the series — which is told in comics — the team used interactive images to tell the stories of some of the children and adults affected by high levels of lead in their blood and what has been happening to them during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

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.

Data Journalism Top 10: Simple Google Searches, COVID Contracts, Mining Indigenous Land, Nashville Hot Spots, Blackstone in Berlin

Have you ever noticed how your Google search results now appear with boxes of information extracted from the websites by the search engine? Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 9 to 15 found The Markup’s new “Simple Search” browser extension, which allows you to view the best results in the “traditional” Google search format. We also discovered a visualization of the connection between members of the ruling British Conservative Party and COVID-19 contracts, InfoAmazonia’s investigation into mining requests in protected Indigenous land in the Amazon, and German daily Der Tagesspiegel showing that the American private equity group Blackstone is a major private property owner in the German capital, Berlin.

Data Journalism Top 10: Musical Taste by Politics, Podcasts, Polling Problems, COVID Tweet Analysis

The US presidential election dominated the Twitter chat waves last week. Our NodeXL #ddj mapping from November 2 to 8 found data journalists sharing live election results trackers by Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, while The Atlantic and Slate weighed in on the problems of polling. Elsewhere open source platform Mapbox is organizing an election mapping contest, and Lazer Lab created a dashboard to explore 29 million tweets related to COVID-19 shared by over half a million Americans.