numbers

Journalists working with data should remember to make it digestible and relatable among other key principles, but how can they strike the perfect balance between creating a data visualisation that conveys information to readers in a clear way and that is also visually appealing?

In this guest post on the Online Journalism Blog, Steve Carufel, a student on the MA in Multiplatform and Mobile Journalism at Birmingham City University, provides eight tips for reporters to avoid bad data storytelling from an interview with freelance data reporter Thomas de Beus.

De Beus, who runs a blog called Colourful Facts in which he outlines and improves flawed data visualisations, advises journalists to avoid using fruits as a way to portray information and numbers, and to steer clear of pie charts when showing trends or comparisons.

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