Thursday, October 17, 2019

Politico visualizes 'The Dis-United States of Cannabis'

The Dis-United States of Cannabis by Politico's Taylor Miller Thomas and Beatrice Jin is an example of how to categorize complex data, and of how to use equal-size square maps in a news story (one suggestion, though: I wish the charts had better color contrast; the shades of green are way too similar to each other):


Legislation about cannabis possession and use is so varied in the United States that the designers had to subdivide the country into several categories, and then show where marijuana is illegal, has been decriminalized, or has become legal either for medical or personal purposes. This is an example of one of the sections of the story:


There's a sources and methodology section at the end of the piece. This is great. Sometimes news publications separate their stories from the footnotes, sources, or explanations of the methods used to gather or analyze data. I think that integrating it all works better: