02:34 pm
Swine Flu: Misleading Map of the Day
From Reuters:
So what’s wrong with this map? To begin with, countries in which deaths have been reported are all colored red. That means that the U.S., which has one reported death, and Mexico, with more than a hundred, are lumped into the same category.
Second, the “precautions taken” category excludes countries where there are cases already confirmed or suspected, which of course means that it looks like those countries haven’t taken precautions (the same, by the way, applies to the fact that countries where there have been deaths also are countries where there are confirmed cases).
Third, what do they mean by “precautions”? There’s no real definition here, which may mislead readers into thinking that all the countries in yellow are taking the same steps, whereas one may simply be watching for people sneezing at airports and another may have suspended all flights from Mexico.
Finally, and most importantly, this violates messaging 101: don’t present information in a way that leads your reader to draw different conclusions from your intent. Most casual readers are going to glance at this map, see all the countries in color, and conclude that all of those countries have reported cases. And that, of course, leads to a conclusion that there’s a massive pandemic. That may be true, but it’s not the information in the map.
So nice job, Reuters, your lazy graphics are helping confuse your readers in ways that could contribute to the growing fear of widespread contagion.
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