Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis

Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis

by Gordon Bolduan -
Number of replies: 0

I have chosen  the article “36,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis” published by Jin Wu, Allison McCann, Josh Katz and Elian Petier in the New York Times. The article was updated on April 23, 2020, 10 PM.  

Link:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronavirus-missing-deaths.html

The author team uses several multi-line graphs, each for a different country, to describe the death toll caused by the coronavirus. They do that, to “undermine the notion that many people who have died from the virus may soon have died anyway”. It is not a fancy story as it does neither use fancy graphics nor interactive elements. It also is a simple one as does not find additional characters, except a scientist from Germany, and does not accuse governments directly. But is uses data to add context.

And by doing so, and by building up a short chain of evidence with one or two arguments, the article makes it clear to the readers in an impressive and especially comprehensible way that COVID-19 is a really dangerous disease and therefore the restrictions are all the more important. So I think this article is good data journalism.