Make sure you are presenting numbers and statistics correctly to your audience
Data visualisation is a key skill for all journalists and it has been particularly important when reporting on coronavirus statistics.
In an article for IJNet, data journalist Amr Eleraqi offers advice on making sure you do not repeat other journalists’ mistakes when visualising important data.
He picked out a graph used by Fox News showing covid-19 infection rates and identified two common issues: the y-axis does not progress in consistent values, and the base number is not zero. This can cause confusion amongst viewers.
"While the data may statistically be accurate, the way it is portrayed conveys an inaccurate understanding of the numbers. The graph was also published with no reference to the data source," it reads.
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