Marie Segger

Edited by Daniel Franklin and Sacha Nauta. And as always at The Economist there were many more researchers, designers and editors involved. I’m delighted to have played a role in pulling this together as one of our interim special-projects editors.

A crack team pulled this week’s @economist.com cover package together. The stunning data visualisations are from @rospearce.bsky.social, brilliant modelling from @owenwntr.bsky.social and insightful reporting from @matthewholehouse.bsky.social
www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

Our new model captures the lottery of Britain’s electoral system Similar results, our data analysis shows, can yield strikingly different outcomes

No one is talking about it yet, but this will soon be the most important question in British politics:

How can the country’s broken electoral system be fixed?

www.economist.com/interactive/...

[03/24] 18h01 (French time, that is)? Time for the third riddle of the data advent calendar! Let's hear it from you then

When the electorate fragments, first past the post electoral system becomes a slot machine. In an election tomorrow, a remarkably wide spread is possible.

This week's UK cover story on the coming legitimacy crisis featuring @owenwntr.bsky.social's new model
www.economist.com/leaders/2025...

Tracking American drug-boat strikes off Venezuela’s coast Are smugglers or Nicolás Maduro’s regime the target?

Earlier this week we published another quick special project from our stellar team at @economist.com.

Amazing work from @fteoldi.bsky.social, @sambeal.bsky.social, @josephc.net and many other editors, researchers and designers.

www.economist.com/interactive/...

Hurricane Melissa is one of the strongest storms ever recorded Jamaica and Cuba are in its path

What makes Hurricane Melissa so different to other storms?

A terrific piece with stellar graphics pulled together by our special-projects team with help from across the paper @ainsliejstone.bsky.social @fteoldi.bsky.social @eljlees.bsky.social
@josephc.net

www.economist.com/interactive/...

People learning about boat data

Tonight we’re learning how to track boats and see the seas using @globalfishingwatch.org!

The Economist: Off the Charts | Substack The Economist’s data and visual journalists share the tools, techniques and ideas behind their award-winning stories. Click to read The Economist: Off the Charts, a Substack publication.

We have quietly launched Off the Charts, our @economist.com data newsletter, on Substack.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for FREE (paid subscribers also receive access to our newsletter archive & two of our data-driven pieces each week)

theeconomistoffthecharts.substack.com

The Economist Insider launches soon A new premium video experience from The Economist, coming on October 9th

A brand new look at our journalism @economist.com www.economist.com/comingsoon

The Economist: Off the Charts | Substack The Economist’s data and visual journalists share the tools, techniques and ideas behind their award-winning stories. Click to read The Economist: Off the Charts, a Substack publication.

Off the Charts, The Economist's weekly data-journalism newsletter, is now on Substack! It's free to subscribe and you'll receive a steady supply of tips, tricks and behind-the-scenes tales from our award-winning data team 🧵
theeconomistoffthecharts.substack.com

Today's chartle game is almost exactly like 📈

Wanted: a junior motion-graphics designer for our video department Join The Economist

We are seeking a motivated and dynamic graduate or graphic designer to join our video team as a junior motion-graphics designer. Apply by September 1st

A great opportunity for anyone who wants to learn the basics of data journalism #ddj

A question for naval/subsea experts: at what resolution does bathymetric data become sensitive in terms of offering military value?

To track the Israel-Iran war, @economist.com, I think uniquely, monitors 208 strategic sites in Iran for abnormal thermal activity. It can be hard to know how much maps of confirmed strikes may miss. We find broad overlap, but not perfect. www.economist.com/interactive/...

My cover story this week is on a fascinating global shift: the diminishing preference for baby boys around the world - and the first inklings of a bias towards girls. I'd love for you to read it.

www.economist.com/briefing/202...

💌 Our Equal Measures 2030 April newsletter is out including:

✨ Announcing our 2025 Storytelling with Gender Data Fellows
✨ Reflecting on CSW69 and Beijing+30

Give it a read here: tinyurl.com/38m52srk

💌 Subscribe to keep up to date with EM2030: tinyurl.com/5n6j3zd8

#GenderEquality #Data

I love the idea of the storytelling with gender data fellowship! Looking forward to seeing what the fellows get up to📈

Chart from The Economist showing the word counts of social media posts by Trump and Vance since the inauguration

Striking chart and quite a stat:

"Since January 20th [Trump] has churned out 4,149 words a week...If he keeps it up, his total oeuvre as president will surpass Marcel Proust's 1.3m-word “Remembrance of Things Past” in early 2028."

www.economist.com/united-state...

Roses are red
Violets are blue

Britain has been quietly making significant progress in women's representation across business and politics.
Data for all 29 OECD countries in our annual glass-ceiling index 👇
www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

We used ChatGPT a year ago, @alexselbyb.bsky.social wrote about it in our data newsletter: view.e.economist.com?qs=6596a8f68...

Clearly we should give it another shot!

I'd also be interested in knowing which tool you used, @scientificdiscovery.dev. So far my experiences with generated alt text for charts have not been great, but if you can build upon them to arrive at this, they clearly have come a long way since I last tried!

I wrote about the latest Democracy index from EIU. 2024 was a great year for polling-booth manufacturers, but less so for global democracy

www.economist.com/interactive/...

Zwei Tage vor der der Wahl haben Friedrich Merz und die Union eine Anfrage gestellt, die man in dieser Form sonst nur von der AfD kannte. In 551 (!) Fragen stellen sie die Gemeinnützigkeit zahlreicher NGOs in Frage, darunter auch des @netzwerkrecherche.org. dserver.bundestag.de/btd/20/150/2...

How are Germans planning to vote? I took a look, with five charts and a bunch of data 🇩🇪📈

Color Find - Test Your Color Perception Challenge yourself with this addictive color perception game. Find the different colored square, compete on the leaderboard, and see how far you can go!

Thanks (or no thanks?) to @alexselbyb.bsky.social for mentioning this 'spot the wrong colour' game in the latest @economist.com 'Off the charts' #dataviz newsletter sent by @mariesegger.bsky.social.
My Saturday morning productivity? Nonexistent! 😂

German business is being suffocated by high costs and red tape Many bosses doubt that the upcoming election will change that

My article, just out, on what German business leaders are expecting from the new government--and why they feel with they are standing with their backs to the wall
www.economist.com/business/202...

A lovely walk down the visual memory lane yesterday at @visualisingdata.com’s very entertaining book launch. He highlighted a different standout chart for every year of the last two decades or so📈📊📉🗺️