Thursday 22nd September: How data visualisation can add value to your stories

September 22, 2022

Good morning! Today's newsletter is brought to you by Peter.

I am not naturally a numbers guy. I work with spreadsheets but they bring me no joy. Graphs on the other hand... everyone loves a good graph. This excellent data-visualisation explainer from the Fix is about more than numbers and graphs, but at its heart, it's about making information accessible for people like me.

It talks about useful tools and provides loads of examples of complex information presented beautifully. But it actually goes beyond making things look good; studies show that allowing users to 'take control' of the way they experience data using interactive graphics makes it easier to understand.

The good news is you don’t need to be an expert coder to create effective graphics. The work varies, but it can be boiled down to data analysis and visualisation and this piece recommends tools to help you do both.

I feel like it's been a long time since we've talked about newspaper ABCs. That usually means there's been no major change, and looking at the latest year-on-year column, the decline continues. That FT growth is about 500 copies and for everyone else annual circulation is down by up to 20%. I think I'm starting to remember why we stopped reporting these regularly 😟

It's a difficult balancing act; paywalls are an increasingly important revenue generator for publishers, but they can mess with SEO, crucial for audience acquisition. A new report outlined on WNIP offers tips on how publishers can minimize the impact, from paying attention to how you are blocking people to considering your content-access strategy article by article.

Over 10 years ago, Samir Husni - Mr Magazine - wrote an article for the 40th anniversary of the German magazine GIT VERLAG giving his thoughts on what magazines would be like in 2049. He's just published an English translation and, if e-paper technology every catches up with his imagination, we're in for a treat.

Save the date!

We’re pleased to be able to reveal the roundtables for the afternoon of the Publisher Podcast Summit 2022 on October 5th. Honestly, you should be coming to this if you have any interest whatsoever in podcasting and media. It's amaaaazing.

We'll be back in your ears next Monday 26th September with the next season of Media Voices, and we're excited to show you what we've been working on. In the meantime, why not browse our back catalogue? All our past episodes are tagged up by topic if you'd like to find previous episodes and guests around specific areas.