Swine flu

A timely guide

Its getting serious this SIV, so let us add clarity and calm things slightly

The ill are getting no help from their local surgeries, and are being told to stay away from GP's practice. No comfort to those who are panic stricken and read headline news

What will Government figures show?

Andrew Blenkinsop and David Kinross and produced this clean and simple interactive for Telegraph.co.uk when the original outbreak consumed the world's media

I'm still rather chuffed with it, it does the job and informs

Swine flu: UK press [4]

Hoovering up of explaining more?

The Sunday press hoovered up from what was left to explain from the last seven days of swine flu

The Sunday Times (a) followed the trend of showing how many cases, by country, using the circular chart method, as noticed in the Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Independent and the Guardian, while not really developing the story further.

In the Sunday Telegraph (b), Stefan Bayley and Ciaran Hughes updated the UK and global figures as shown during the week, but their is a nugget of information in the bottom right corner, as shown above, which looks at the 1918 pandemic, and how the 'case rate' peaked and troughed during the following seasons

The Independent on Sunday (c, d + e) produced a fabulous guide and infographic explainer along the base of the compact spread, of the swine flu crisis. Based upon a timeline, Cath Levett and Richard Burgess explained the past week's news in an incredibly clean and clear fashion. The infographic culminates by date, and by pandemic rating, of the death toll, and confirmed cases, by volume

Is there any more to explain?

Has any print or online platform missed anything?

Surely all has been covered, please tell me if I am wrong

Swine flu: UK press [3]

And there we have it. Day 4

Firstly, lets start with the Times. What the hell (pic 3)? Is anyone supposed to read this? Insane. The Times have produced the greatest of infographics over the past year or so, but this? It's a bio hazard symbol, over a globe, with a load of zero's around it. What kind of editorial decision is this?

Yesterday's heroes, the Independent (pic 1), have finally followed the trend and gone global. Following the hysterical trend of reporting the 'suspected cases', they show where and by what quantity the countries in the spotlight are harbouring their illnesses

The Guardian (pics 4+5) went nuts, over the centre spread, showing the same thing. It feels great. But do we really learn anything new that we don't already know. Similar to the Independent. The global issue was yesterday.

We need to go local. Push the news agenda with infographics. Data maps only get you so far. Why not explain something different? Data is everywhere, on the radio, on TV, on the Internet and all over our newspapers.

So why tell people what they already knew yesterday. OK. This is the life of the printed news. Always playing catch-up. But we should be trying to explain much more...

At the Telegraph (pic 2), not that we are right or wrong, but we decided to develop a different agenda. I had a chat with the online director, who said that users (traffic from Telegraph.co.uk) were not interested in how many cases where around the world, but how it directly involved them.

Basically, what and how the virus was spread, and what happens to the body. So there you are. Our graphic in the Telegraph yesterday. A radically different approach to what the press has covered, but what our readers wanted and needed to know!