Stats + Stories

Deciphering Dishonest Charts | Stats + Stories Episode 374

Stats + Stories

Show Notes

Data visualizations are everywhere, showing up in social media, in the news, and on company websites. With this onslaught, it can be hard to know what visualizations to trust. Learning how to navigate bad graphs and charts is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Nathan Yau.

Yau is the author of several books on data visualization, including Visualize This and a number of other works. He also runs the Flowing Data blog, where he works to make the process of creating data visualizations accessible to a wide audience. He recently published a defense against dishonest charts on his blog, which serves as a guide to determining which visualizations to trust.

Flowing Data's Origin and Development 2:32 Surprising Insights and Misleading Charts 7:55 Anatomy of a Chart and Common Misleading Techniques 12:25 Strategies for Reading Data and Interactive Charts 16:31 Feedback and Tools for Visualization 23:26

More from Stats + Stories

Oct 22, 2026

The federal government generates a lot of data, produced by agencies such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. These data inform the decisions leaders make that shape our lives. Covering these agencies and their statistics is no easy task. A Bloomberg journalist was recognized this year for her excellence in reporting on these data, and that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Molly Smith.

Oct 15, 2026

Jessica G. Myrick (@jessmyrick) is an associate professor of media studies at the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. Her research focuses on the role of emotions in shaping our responses to various types of media messagesMyrick's research has touched on topics ranging from skin cancer prevention campaigns and climate change appeals to the effects of incivility in responses to political Facebook posts and why we watch cat videos, and it has been featured in news outlets around the globe.

Oct 8, 2026

There's a lot of concern about how bots and algorithms shape our experiences, both online and off. Increasingly, those concerns are focused on our politics. Can bots fuel political polarization? Can algorithms shape political narratives? A recent study seeks to understand the agenda-building capabilities of social bots in a political context, and that is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with Phillip Arceneaux and Josh Anderson.

Sep 24, 2026

During the 2010s, the United States netted just under one million new immigrants each year; between 2022 and 2024, that number was closer to three million. But since the election of Donald Trump, immigration to the U.S. has taken a nosedive, and potentially so has the economic growth of the country. The economic impact of the rise and fall of immigration to the U.S. is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with Tara Watson.

Sep 17, 2026

When reporters cover mass shootings news outlets often struggle to find ways to cover the event that won’t inspire others to do the same thing. Something similar follows in the wake of a suicide. Journalists don’t always cover suicides in their communities but when they do one of the concerns is whether that coverage might lead to a spike in suicides after the story is out. The media’s influence on the actions of individuals is a chronic concern for researchers in a number of fields and is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Joel Greenhouse

See all episodes →