[HN Gopher] CNN Has a Strong Contender for the Worst Chart You'l...
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CNN Has a Strong Contender for the Worst Chart You'll Ever See
Author : Tomte
Score : 49 points
Date : 2021-06-24 20:25 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (daringfireball.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (daringfireball.net)
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I couldn't even tell what it was measuring until seeing it
| explained in the Twitter comments. Apparently it's an estimate of
| the percentage of American adults who _think_ violent crime is a
| problem, for whatever reason going backwards through time at a
| non-uniform rate. Even after that being explained, I don 't see
| anywhere this is indicated on the graphic, so I have to assume
| this person looked it up using Pew Foundation's real publication.
| firebaze wrote:
| Nobody would be this dense to do this deliberately. What follows
| from this I don't know.
| infamouscow wrote:
| Why do you believe that? More than a few people at CNN signed
| off on this before airing to the world.
| arp242 wrote:
| > More than a few people at CNN signed off on this before
| airing to the world.
|
| I always had the impression that a lot of this kind of stuff
| is produced in a hurry, not infrequently by lowly paid
| interns and the like. Especially if there's a news item just
| 30 minutes before airing time you got to race to produce this
| and there isn't really time for a proper signing-off
| procedure.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| You don't reverse an axis by accident.
| arp242 wrote:
| How do you know? Could just be a screw-up in the software
| they used to generate it somehow; i.e. they filled in the
| labels in the wrong order, were in a hurry, and no one
| noticed in time. I didn't even notice it originally.
| firebaze wrote:
| That was my point (I mean, how many people must consider
| their readers that stupid to post a chart like this?)
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Nobody would be this dense to do this deliberately
|
| That makes more sense with "... accidentally" than
| "...deliberately".
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Its _bad_ , sure, but I've seen thousands worse; its a strong
| contender for the worst I'll see _today_ , sure.
| olliej wrote:
| Did you notice that the dates are right to left as well as
| different time periods?
|
| I've never seen one this bad
| beprogrammed wrote:
| The wizard of odds made it
| enjoyyourlife wrote:
| The actual chart:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E4m6HfFVIAMw5BW?format=jpg
| imapeopleperson wrote:
| Clearly CNN needs to pay much, much more for talent
| olliej wrote:
| Alternatively they pay a lot to get a graph that is "accurate",
| but at a glance shows a storyline that they want
| wodenokoto wrote:
| @dang, maybe it would make more sense to link to the twitter post
| at https://twitter.com/antumbral/status/1407861007209222151 since
| tfa doesn't anything, but actually only obscure the chart in
| question.
| Tenoke wrote:
| Tweet posts get auto-downweighed here so there's big
| incentives* to post like that as annoying as it is.
|
| * We wouldn't even be seeing this given the number of upvotes
| if it was a link to the tweet.
| gus_massa wrote:
| It's more reliable to send an email to hn@ycombinato.com
| Sometimes dang does not find these suggestions.
| gus_massa wrote:
| It was difficult to find the link to the chart, because it looks
| like the title of the post. (In case you still can't find it
| https://twitter.com/antumbral/status/1407861007209222151 )
|
| [spoiler alert] At least it's not a pie chart.
| jwilber wrote:
| Things wrong (maybe not exhaustive): - x-axis ordered right-to-
| left - inconsistent scale in x-axis - y-axis values that "tell
| the story " are all within the margin of error (ie is there even
| a story?) - brick wall background ticks don't appear to relate to
| y-axis
|
| Aesthetic, but: - useless area shading and random opacity changes
| (unless this is a photo of a screen?)
|
| Also the story is itself nothing. Apart from basically all the
| data laying in the MOE, the increase comes from the anomalous
| year: of course crime went up after covid. Did it go up higher
| than previous years? This chart couldn't tell you.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I think reversing the x-axis was a particularly inventive choice!
| spfzero wrote:
| And using a different interval for every tick-mark. That's
| something I never considered looking out for before. What
| possible credential and/or experience could you have, to get
| this job at CNN and also create this graphic?
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Polish state TV also does have strong entry in this category:
| https://www.wykop.pl/cdn/c3201142/comment_1623238768TSBQUXC0.
| ..
| Guest42 wrote:
| It makes me wonder the extent to which it's diabolical, as
| though someone can get a PhD in manipulative statical
| disinformation. Surely there are layers of approval for this.
| zinekeller wrote:
| I was reminded of another chart that I see on a US-based media
| organisation (can't remember the org, sorry, but definitely not
| CNN) that has an inverted y-axis.
|
| Who will be the next "talented" org that will do a graph with
| both axes inverted (without justification)?
| tfehring wrote:
| Maybe this one? https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-deaths-
| in-florida-increa...
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(page generated 2021-06-24 23:02 UTC)