CHARTS: The most misleading charts of 2015, fixed

[Ryan Goble]

Super cool from QZ...

We make a lot of charts here at Quartz. We also spend a lot of time thinking and talking about charts. We have a 6,000-word guide to dealing with bad data and a treatise on properly using the y-axis. So when we see charts in the wild that use fuzzy or bad data, improperly skew axes, or are otherwise misleading, we get sad. We think, “The world is filled with good data! Why can’t everyone just use properly sourced and normalized data and present it in a straightforward way?!” So this year, we rounded up the worst offenders and corrected them.

Skewing the y-axis on Planned Parenthood data

At a hearing on Sept. 29, Republicans in the US Congress grilled the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, accusing her of misusing the organization’s $500 million in annual federal funding. To drive home the point, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah pulled out this chart:

And here’s how the congressman explained the chart: “In pink, that’s the reduction in the breast exams, and the red is the increase in the abortions. That’s what’s going on in your organization.”

At first glance, it may indeed appear that the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood has skyrocketed while the number of cancer screenings has plummeted. One might also be left with the impression that the organization has been performing far more abortions than preventative procedures since 2010. But that is not the case. The main issue with this chart is that it has no discernible y-axis, so the placement of the lines is arbitrary. To believe this chart as it’s presented is to believe 327,000 is a larger number than 935,573.

Full article is HERE.