… Not only are videos and data more easily accessible in sports than politics, but sports statistics represent the cumulation of directly observed actions, whereas the influences on, say, public opinion are not filmed and measured over time. Nonetheless, it’s worth thinking about how political coverage can go beyond chartblogging to present other forms of visual information that help readers understand patterns or trends.
How might this be done? Consider polling coverage. Write-ups of public opinion data sometimes include quotes from follow-up interviews with respondents as well as graphical analyses in sidebars. CONT.
Brendan Nyhan (Dartmouth), Columbia Journalism Review