How The Economist, USA Today, and Fox News Might Display a Chart

Overview

I was reading a very interesting blog post this weekend from which I learned that counseling may do little to help young people with drinking problems. Specifically, counseling reduces the average number of drinks consumed from 13.7 drinks per week to 12.2 drinks per week.

I wondered if a visual might drive this point home, and then wondered how different media outlets would display the chart if the article were to appear in that outlet.

The Economist

Here’s what an accompanying chart might look like in The Economist.

Actually, in The Economist the axis would appear along the top of the chart, but there’s no easy way to do that in Tableau.

USA Today

Here’s how USA Today might handle the same information.

Special thanks to Joe Mako who helped me with data densification / padding and the masking so I would not have to resort to Excel to create the pictogram.