10 Sep 2004 | matthew said...

adding to the confusion is the fact that time moves from right to left on that graphic. i know this is eurocentric but shouldn't time move from left to right?

10 Sep 2004 | SH said...

*NICE* observation, R. Very nice.

10 Sep 2004 | Josh Williams said...

Actually though, if the red signified casualties the red block for Iraq would be even smaller in comparison to most of the others. If anything, this makes the casualties look larger than they are.

Still though, bad graphic.

10 Sep 2004 | Ian said...

What I found interesting about the graphic is 1. According to the graphic this is the first time in our nation's history that we've had two wars going on at one time and 2. If someone were to misinterpret the size of the squares as amount of casualities the Afghan War has almost as many a the Civil War.

10 Sep 2004 | Josh Williams said...

I mean, think about it guys... Ryan, your comment is more misleading than the graphic. If the red blocks signified casualties, and the other wars were presented on the same scale as the Iraq war (which is 4 pixels wide), that means WWII would span, oh, over 1600 pixels.

That'll barely fit on my cinema display.

Hmmm... Be careful how you spin things yourself.

10 Sep 2004 | Hagbard Celine said...

No War on Terror. No War on Some Drugs.

If they're going to call these campaigns wars shouldn't they be lumped in with all the other wars?

10 Sep 2004 | Hagbard Celine said...

Oh, my mistake. I apologize. They have lumped the war on terror (lower case) in with the Afghan War.

10 Sep 2004 | dru said...

+1 to the whole right - left time thing

10 Sep 2004 | Hugh said...

Your title "Deceptive graphic from the DOD" is misleading. The "Source" designates where the data (numbers & years) came from, not the design or implementation. This is just a case of bad design.

In addition to the left-right issue. the timeline should have tick marks. The title should say something like "US War Lengths & Casualties."

CNN wouldn't publish a graphic supplied by the DOD, Fox News might though.

10 Sep 2004 | indi said...

I'm in agreement with the notion that the graphic is misleading until you read the numbers ... so, bad graphic choice but the intent to mislead isn't there. Maybe they could have put little vertical bars above each war span so you could mentally relate the length of war with the number of casualties

11 Sep 2004 | Hugh said...

If there was any intent to deceive it would have been opposite of what you implied. Here's are quick graph of the casualties.

U.S. War Casualties

11 Sep 2004 | indi said...

on the other hand the bars showing relative casualties would be hard to show ... the american civil war and WWII would be much higher than the others. Perhaps that is why this chart was constucted this way. Maybe a pie chart would work for comparing casualties ... or a ring, with the thickness of a segment proportional to the length of the war.

11 Sep 2004 | Paul said...

I'm guessing the reason the timeline goes from right to left is because we Westerners read from left to right. The graphic is trying to draw our attention to the current conflict(s) by putting that information where our eyes naturally start reading--at the left side of the page.

I think if the chart had been titled "Timeline of U.S. War Casualties"--because despite its seemingly backwards orientation, it clearly is a timeline--a bit of confusion could have been avoided. When I view it as a timeline, I find it to be a helpful chart. I can see at a glance, for instance, that the U.S. has suffered several times more casualties in the Iraq War than in the Afghan War--even though the Afghan War has been going on longer.

11 Sep 2004 | kirkaracha said...

The term "casualties" and the 1,002 figure are misleading, too.

First, "casualties" includes killed and wounded, and this figure doesn't include over 6,400 wounded. (The figures given for other wars also only include deaths, so they're comparing the same thing, but the chart should be labeled U.S. War Deaths.)

Second, the 1,002 figure doesn't include people who were wounded in Iraq, evacuated, and died elsewhere. According to GlobalSecurity.org, as of July 31, 2004, over 13,000 Army personnel had been evacuated from Iraq for various medical reasons (the Marines don't report their evacuations), and as of September 1, 2004, 10 US service members had died outside Iraq after being wounded and evacuated. The evacuated personnel includes people who "suffered extensive brain-damage and with no prospect of regaining consciousness, are sent home for families to decide whether or not to terminate life support." Also, the 1,002 figure only includes people whose families have been notified of their deaths.

11 Sep 2004 | Jose Rui Fernandes said...

It's not a good graphic but I think it's not misleading in the way you saw it for reasons Josh Williams and Hugh already appointed. To represent this amount of information I think we need some kind of 3d graphic. We have "wars", "casualties" and "time".
Anyway, 1002 is a lot. I still don't know why they're dead.
I understand the 135.

11 Sep 2004 | RS said...

Your title "Deceptive graphic from the DOD" is misleading. The "Source" designates where the data (numbers & years) came from, not the design or implementation. This is just a case of bad design.

Yes you're right. I've changed the title. That's what I get for hastily posting on a Friday afternoon!

11 Sep 2004 | Hugh said...

Jose, yes three axes, I would love to see that visualized. There's a good challenge for someone.

11 Sep 2004 | tom sherman said...

Kudos to Hugh (in these comments) for some very cogent points., especially for pointing out the deceptive (previous) title.

The CNN graphics could be greatly improved if it moved left-to-right and if there were vertical bars situated over each horizontal timespan to indicate # of casualties. My $0.02.

p.s. I wasn't able to enter my proper e-mail address because the Javascript popup claimed it was invalid. I assume this is because it starts with an underscore (_bleach [at] yahoo [dot] com), but I can assure you I receive mail on the account every day. :)

11 Sep 2004 | aliotsy said...

I agree that the size of the red blocks is misleading, but I'm not sure if the right-left thing is necessarily bad. My eyes immediately jumped to the far right of the timeline (perhaps because it's toward the middle of my screen?), then the far left, and then gradually made it's way across the middle back to the right.

The graphic may be left-right to serve another form of data comparison. Comparing war casualties isn't a strictly chronological process. Looking at the graphic, one of the first things I see is the war most relevant to many of us (that is, current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan), and then your eyes travel back in time to put it in context with past wars.

12 Sep 2004 | Jose Rui Fernandes said...

I was here thinking about the graph again and there's no need to the 3d graphic (but it's not that difficult Hugh, you can just 3d your graph with the length of each war from 1 to 12 years).
The actual graphic is pretty accurate regarding "time" and "wars" and we only need to raise the bars with "casualties" (or killed) to have also a visual representation of that (currently there's only a number). So, if we placed each bar of Hugh graph in the proper "war" already represented by it's length we have all the information visually displayed. The problem to solve are the two wars at the same time.
But, I'm afraid the Ryan Singer outrage will be bigger because the current casualties just disappear in the middle of the out of scale WWII and Civil War barbarism.
The other way to compare the weight of casualties in each war is to calculate some kind of median like casualties/year, casualties/month or even casualties/day. That would be more close to the actual picture.
More interesting, a graphic evolution of casualties with time during a war. Say, in the Vietnam war and this Iraq war. Since they are more comparable events than other wars in the graph, the american people and the world could know what 1002 really means in the first years of a war.

12 Sep 2004 | p8 said...

The gray bars between the red bars are also very confusing, especially with the white borders between them. At first glance I thought they represented the bottom wars. The height of the red bars is also given too much importance, especially when the height is greater than the width.
Without them the graphic seems a bit empty, but it's still no excuse for using them.

Doesn't Tufte say something like 'leave as much detail in the graphic as possible'? A better graphic, like Jose said, would make the height of the red bar the number of casualites per year. Now the area does have meaning. This example uses average per year for the whole war but total casualties per year would give better information (more detail).

Another good example of a misleading graphic (and why it's good to leave as much detail in the graphic as possible) is the monthly US fatalities graphic fom CNN. It looks like September is a more peaceful month when actually the average has been climbing from 1.67 in June to 2.5 in September.
At least last year CNN indicated in the graphic that the month had not yet ended.

13 Sep 2004 | Jean-Michel said...

I just find it amazing that nobody mentions the fact the figures are not compared to the total number of casualties. Everyone talks about how misleading the display of information is, no one mentions the absence of crucial information: the other side's casualties...

13 Sep 2004 | Todd W. said...

What first needs to be done (and is fairly clear wasn't done at CNN) is make a list of what we want to display. Based on the discussion, here are some options:

conflict duration (years)
ratio of killed per year
ratio of wounded per year
ratio of killed vs conflict participants
ratio of wounded vs conflict particpants

I think this all could be acheived using a time scale for each side in a conflict. The width of each block of color would stand for the conflict duration, as in a traditional timeline. Each block would be split in two, proportionally for killed/wounded. The blocks would be shaded percentages of a color to denote the kill ratio per participant. The shade could include a horizontal gradient which showed the proportion per year.

Additionally, we could add scales to show civilian casualties. Make one line for each nation, stck them vertically and you could show, for instance, the history of 20th Century warfare worldwide.

13 Sep 2004 | Don Schenck said...

There is no doubt in my mind that CNN wanted this graph to be misleading. They're the antithesis of Fox News.

Sadly, we do *not* get "balance" from two wildly-opposite viewpoints. *sigh*

13 Sep 2004 | p8 said...

Jean-Michel, is was thinking about this as well. I even started another graphic out of curiosity, but I couldn't find all the figures (sources use varying figures). WW1 and 2 are also a bit problematic with a lot of countries having casualties. Including all casualties definitely takes a lot more time/money, which the big media is increasingly less willing to spend.

13 Sep 2004 | Darrel said...

"They're the antithesis of Fox News."

That's stretching it a tad, Don. Have you seen 'outfoxed' yet?

If anything, CNN (and most of the rest of the pack) is just lazy. Fox actually isn't lazy...they go out of their way to present their news their way.

14 Sep 2004 | indi said...

Well, after seeing what CBS has done with the possibly forged Killian documents I'm not sure they are just being lazy.

Interesting to note that cbsnews.com is telling both sides while CBS broadcast news is still sticking to their story.

14 Sep 2004 | eric said...

way to go SVN, couldn't you have used a lame graphic instead without any political connotations?

Josh - he wasn't spinning anything, so shut up! jeez..

Kirkaracha and Jean-Michel , maybe no-one is mentioning the "other" casualties becuase this topic was about the presentation of the GIVEN data. You want to make your own chart of data go ahead, and then link it up so we can all see!

14 Sep 2004 | dc said...

How many people knew the Afghan war is already longer than WW I ?

14 Sep 2004 | p8 said...

dc, it's not, only US participation is.

WW1 started in 1914 and ended in 1918

14 Sep 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

possibly forged Killian documents

Possibly, yes, possibly not. The documents are not exactly citing what would be anomalous behavior for GWB at the time. But, you shouldnt hold someones past behavior against them (people can learn form their past mistakes and use the experiences to become better people). Hes self admittedly a reformed man.

14 Sep 2004 | Darrel said...

"Well, after seeing what CBS has done with the possibly forged Killian documents I'm not sure they are just being lazy."

I think that's exactly it. They were too lazy to question the validity of the documents. CNN, CBS, etc are all biased...towards selling commercial time and promoting the next wife-swapping-death-stunt-home-remodel-you're-fired-dating show

14 Sep 2004 | indi said...

Dan Rather's political leanings are well known ... he was predisposed to believe the documents were authentic without thorough vetting. Whoever fed CBS the documents was counting on that. Shame on the 60 minutes staff for not being more careful.

14 Sep 2004 | Darrel said...

"Dan Rather's political leanings are well known"

Out of curiosity, do folks like Dan Rather actually do any investigative journalism these days? I was always under the impression that they were mainly just the spokesperson for whatever news is handed to them.

14 Sep 2004 | indi said...

Darrell, Dan Rather is "Anchor and Managing Editor, CBS Evening News; Correspondent, 60 Minutes II." So that does make him more than just a reporter or TV personality. He does have a say on what goes on the air.

14 Sep 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

"Shame on the 60 minutes staff for not being more careful"

Are you reasonably certain no fact checking was done? Or maybe youre ire is based on nothing more than idle conjecture (hopefully not no need to get righteous and cast shame without reason).

14 Sep 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

"you're ire"

Sorry, too much editing, too little proofing.

14 Sep 2004 | indi said...

Are you reasonably certain no fact checking was done?
Actually it appears that they only used one expert to check the handwriting portion and he would only authenticate one signature on one document ... he was not a typography expert. They say they don't have the original documents, just copies of copies. They spoke to Killian's son but didn't report his statement that his father didn't write those type of memos and if he did make notes it was in long hand. Killian's wife said he didn't like to type. I would like to believe that this information didn't make it to Dan Rather otherwise he wouldn't have aired the documents. So yes, I am presuming it was his staff that let him down.

I am not getting righteous and casting shame, I am using shame in the sense of "tsk-tsk you naughty people you".

15 Sep 2004 | Arne Gleason said...

They spoke to Killian's son but didn't report his statement that his father didn't write those type of memos and if he did make notes it was in long hand.
They should have reported any statements like that if they were actually made, but Im not sure a son should be considered expert as to what kind of memos his father wrote unless those memos were intended for his son to read (I think accounts by family members are notoriously unreliable the subjectivity meter is off-the-scale).

Killian's wife said he didn't like to type.
Should have been reported if true, but then again I hate typing yet produce a reasonable paper trail all the same.

Reasonable proof of forgery shouldnt be so hard.

The whole thing is a sideshow in any case and doesnt warrant the attention its been given (Im commenting because its fun to tease lateralists of either side when theyre agitated about something trivial).

President Bush has already served one term, and that should provide the best evidence of his qualifications. Kerry is more of a question mark, as the evidence for qualification is necessarily less direct (i.e. not a serving President).

15 Sep 2004 | off topic? said...

umm, hello? i think you guys are in the wrong message post. SVN, don't you monitor these things from wandering 180 degrees from your intential posting?

I know the debate for the CBS document circus is hard to find on the 'net, but could we keep it off at least one blog. oy.

15 Sep 2004 | indi said...

oh, come on mr or ms off topic ... these meanderings are what make blogs fun! But, ok, I'll stop.

So .. ok ... bring it back on topic then ...

15 Sep 2004 | Darrel said...

(I think accounts by family members are notoriously unreliable the subjectivity meter is off-the-scale)

Very good point. Probably not fair to generalize, but I know that in the military (and lot of professions) there is often significant separation between home life and work life.

Plus, I'm not sure if those comments really prove anything. So, he didn't like to type...couldn't any secretary have typed them up? (I'm not saying they're not bad forgeries, just that a lot of the arguments don't really mean anything either.)

The whole thing is a sideshow in any case and doesnt warrant the attention

That seems to be the case with most of this election season, doesn't it? *sigh*

President Bush has already served one term, and that should provide the best evidence of his qualifications.

Qualifications for what? I was in the military. I certainly don't find that that qualified me for anything other than shooting a few guns and filling out lots of paperwork. ;o)

(Point being, the military history of each person really isn't that important on the surface. Bush going to war AND having a past that indicates he may have been a deserter does raise some questions in pure terms of hypocracy, but that's nothing new for Bush. And, really, these types of questions don't seem to hurt his loyal following anyways...)

15 Sep 2004 | Hugh said...

Back on topic. I don't think the timeline adds anything to this graphic. I would much rather view more data. I think it would be better served to show how many years each war lasted and the number of deaths per year in each war. Of course that would require more (journalistic) work to get the data. You couldn't just put something together based on minimal data fed from the DOD in a press release.

The Iraq war is relatively young, visualizing more data could possibly lead to insights to relationships with other wars.

15 Sep 2004 | indi said...

That's a good point Hugh that hadn't occurred to me, the timeline really doesn't add much to the information content of the graphic. Besides seeing deaths/year, I think it would be informative to see deaths/per month or day plotted over time to see when most of the deaths occurred ... were they at the beginning, middle or end of the conflict.

15 Sep 2004 | Todd W. said...

I went away for two days and came back to see this conversation went off the inconsequential sideshow issue cliff.

If we abandon the timeline concept, we could use Tufte's concept of "small multiples" to fill and entire page with micro-graphics. The ability to compare the pace and magnitude of casualties from each conflict would, I think, put the current situation in much needed perspective.

17 Sep 2004 | Hugh said...

Yes, small multiples, I really should finish reading Envisioning Information.

In defense of CNN, it's difficult to put together a "good" graphic on a tight deadline. I guess that is what differentiates the men from the boys (or women from the girls).

If anyone is still on this thread it would be great to have short list of Tuftesque Rules (for working on a tight deadline) that are appropriate for not only news graphics, but other disciplines as well.

28 Sep 2004 | chad mcevoy said...

...also, if it were honest it would be relating the proportional casualties to unit time in the conflict...or better yet any trending and how it relates to other conflicts. How else can you compare something finished with something that is still going on?

More abstractly the idea that any of these wars were clean single events with starts and ends which did not have any relation to each other is fallacious.

29 Sep 2004 | Todd W. said...

So, if we are to be truly accurate, the current conflict would be guaged to start in 1990, with the invasion of Kuwait, since there was no formal treaty ending the conflict, only a cease fire. For the same reasons, the Korean Conflict would also be considered ongoing, demonstrating a significant long tail of near-zero casualties for the last 50 years.

On a related topic, check out this excellent graphic in the NY Times today showing insurgent attacks in the past 30 days, complete with small multiples showing attacks by method (IED, RPG, small arms, etc.)

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2004/09/28/international/0929ATTACKmap.gif

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