Category: Update

I was just reading this article by Nate Silver in fivethirtyeight, which explores the different ways journalists miscommunicate probabilities.

This particular sentence caught my interest: “People associate numbers with precision, so using numbers to express uncertainty in the form of probabilities might not be intuitive.”

So, what if we tried to visually communicate that imprecision. Instead of 25.4 percent, which feels very solid, we represented it as 25.4 percent.

It’s been such a pleasure to see the team develop and thrive this past year. This compilation of graphics from the 2016 election cycle is a tribute to the talent, commitment and drive of the team. Check it out:

The Best American Infographics book, edited by Gareth Cook, came out in October. The Washington Post had our best showing yet, with 10 of our graphics featured. The best thing is that so many of our @PostGraphics team members are represented — at least 11, which is about half the team!

A few pieces that were featured that I edited:

Weapons and mass shootings: Richard Johnson, Bonnie Berkowitz, Ted Mellnik, Todd Lindeman and Kennedy Elliott

When drones fall from the sky: Alberto Cuadra and Emily Chow

Wizards shooting stars: Beautiful work from Todd Lindeman and Lazaro Gamio

I’m really proud of the work we did around the Ebola crisis. Here are a few of the major pieces we did:

How quickly Ebola spreads: This graphic came out of a few different ideas that converged in the exclamation “Let’s animate that!”

What Ebola does to the body

How likely are you to die from Ebola?

Some of the projects I’ve loved this year:

Health hazards of sitting: One day I said to Bonnie that we should do a graphic about how bad sitting is for you (was feeling bad about sitting all day!). She, as usual, simply said “I’ll look into it” and then, with Patterson’s help, made this amazing thing, which was one of our most popular pieces of content this year.

Pistorius affadavit: I developed this project that has some amazing artwork by Todd Lindeman and Richard Johnson

Flight 370 timeline: I developed the little locator map on this project!

Secret service: Sam Granados had the vision for this project, which is a smart mix of media types that tells the story of the night bullets hit the White House and the Secret Service didn’t know. I helped with some of the design and development of the piece.

Intensive Care for a Damaged Dome: Fantastic project by Alberto Cuadra, Sohail Al-Jamea, Katie Park and Kevin Schaul that I edited.

Election Lab: Fun election project designed by Kennedy Elliott that I edited:

This project, which was nominated for the OJA for Excellence and Innovation in Visual Digital Storytelling, was months in the making. It happened only through an enormous amount of collaboration between people from different desks, disciplines, races and perspectives. We decided to examine the history of this word after the NFL instructed game officials to penalize players who used the word on the field. The policy was widely criticized as being heavy-handed and out of touch. We wanted to start a conversation about the word and to bring in the voices of all kinds of people with different perspectives on this word and the ways it is used today — whether and how it should be used, who can or should use it, what it means in people’s lives.

Inside the newsroom, the project brought together a wonderfully diverse group, who spent months exploring the best way to tell this story, ultimately deciding that we wanted to present it through a series of conversations that brought people together to talk about things they might not normally be comfortable talking about. We created something that we all felt proud of, that opened us up to conversations among ourselves that challenged our assumptions and taught us all more about each other. It gave our readers a place to start asking uncomfortable questions and talk about what this word means in their lives.