Why Bloomberg is expanding its data graphics team

Lucinda Southern of Digiday writes about the expansion of Bloomberg’s data graphics team.

Southern writes, “The publisher has a 30-person data journalism team, known as its graphics team, across New York; Washington, D.C.; London; and Hong Kong. This number has grown from six in 2012 when it launched as a separate unit and started experimenting with long-running graphics like the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

“According to Bloomberg, monthly average traffic for the graphics team in 2018 increased 19.3 percent year-over-year, but it wouldn’t share specific numbers.

“‘We want to measure our success through impact, graphics we’ve worked on that have changed things,’ said Martin Keohan, executive editor of graphics and visual data.

“Last November, the team produced charts for a story on the rise in use cases of an old legal document, confessions of judgment, that compels small-business owners seeking a loan to sign a statement giving up their right to defend themselves if the lender takes them to court. In New York, there have been 25,000 court cases — and growing — involving this mechanism over the last three years.”

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