Interview: Alberto Cairo and The Truthful Art

26.05.2016 by Infogram

It is difficult to talk about data visualization, infographics, or data journalism without hearing the name Alberto Cairo. The award-winning author and professor at the School of Communication (University of Miami) just released his second book, The Truthful Art, which has already received much praise.

Visualoop – a member of the Infogram family – asked Alberto a few questions about the new book, data literacy and the role of journalism around the world.

This interview was originally published on the Visualoop website on February 25, 2016.


Why did The Truthful Art follow your first book The Functional Art? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

It really should, and it is actually something that I explain in The Truthful Art, where I outline five features that I believe define most great data visualizations and infographics: they are often truthful, functional, beautiful, insightful and, as a consequence, enlightening. In the new book, I indeed explain that striving to be truthful is paramount. It comes before anything else.

I wrote The Functional Art years ago as an aid for my infographics courses at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Miami, and other places. At the time, my most urgent need was a book that outlined some elementary principles about how to present information in the form of charts, maps, diagrams, explanatory illustrations, data narratives, etc.

Right after The Functional Art was published, though, I began thinking about how important it is for us journalists and designers to get a good grasp of thinking methods. Most of us are pretty far from this goal, based on the many mistakes we see in the media every day —and that, by the way, I’ve made myself. Every single one of them.

It looks like you are aiming for the same audience with your new book – journalists, designers and anyone interested in data visualization. Have you seen that audience grow over the past few years?

Something funny happened with The Functional Art. It is true that I wrote it with journalists and designers (I am both!) in mind. But later I discovered that many of its readers were scientists, statisticians, business analytics folks, etc. Yes, I have noticed an increasing interest in learning how to communicate effectively with graphics.

Our society tends to view data visualizations as truth. But, sometimes the information is manipulated – propaganda disguised by nice visuals. Why do we still take so much bad data viz as truth?

There are many reasons. First of all, as humans, we evolved to survive in our environments, not deeply understand those environments through logic and reasoning. We see incomplete information but we jump to conclusions anyway perhaps because, in our evolutionary past, making snap decisions was crucial for our survival.

We are prone to first form opinions and then look for evidence to confirm them, rather than first gathering all evidence we can, analyzing it, and then forming those opinions. It happens to you, to me, to everyone, no matter how hard we battle those very ingrained instincts. But battle them we should.

What questions should we ask when analyzing data?

First, what assumptions are behind the data: What phenomena and variables were defined and measured, how was the data put together, and how was it transformed. Then ask yourself if the variables you’re seeing are the only ones you should consider to understand the story.

Also, accept that you can’t and shouldn’t work alone. You’ll need to talk to experts. It’s always wise to ask, and ask as many people as possible.

Finding accurate, reliable data can be challenging for journalists in some poorly governed regions. Without good journalism it can be tough to talk about improving data literacy or finding the ‘truth,’ don’t you think?

It is. That’s why publications such as La Nación in Argentina, and many others in many other countries deserve our praise. They don’t rely on publicly available data alone. They generate their own data.

Some journalists struggle with the transition from traditional business models to the modern online landscape. If visual journalists are not in newsrooms, where else can they exercise the ‘truthful art’?

I see hope in the many online news ventures that are doing good work and improving every day: FiveThirtyEight, Vox, ProPublica, etc. Maybe they will never make up for the demise of large newspapers, but they are certainly trying really hard to disseminate good information and do proper journalism. We need more like them.

Visualization designers and infographics journalists can also find plenty of work in non-profit organizations, foundations, think tanks, and NGOs. Places like the Pew Research Center are doing extraordinary journalism, even if they may not call it that. Journalism, for me, is not what journalists do. I don’t see journalism as a profession, but as a way to face the world. To quote Jeff Jarvis, anybody who gathers, organizes, and delivers reliable information that matters to a community commits an act of journalism.

alberto cairo

Since our last interview, you have also taken on new challenges in your academic career at the University of Miami. Can you tell us a bit about the work you do?

Last year I became the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami, and also the director of the visualization branch of our Center for Computational Science. I started a new research project that I am calling ‘Nerd Journalism: News Graphics and the Rise of the Journalist-Engineer’. I am going to interview dozens of news graphics designers about the transformation their work has experienced in the past decade.

Besides that, at the School of Communication, we launched a new specialization in data visualization and infographics at our MFA in Interactive Media and it’s already attracting some very talented students. We are growing rapidly.

Are you finally going to take a break?

I don’t know! Half of me wishes to do so, but I know myself. My other half gets easily bored if it remains idle. Besides the ‘Nerd Journalism’ project, which will become a book in 2017, I need to write the third book in my visualization series, titled The Insightful Art: Data Stories and Infographics.

I also want to sharpen my coding skills. I learned some R last year, and I really, really love it. I also toyed with Tableau, PowerBI, and Quadrigram.com, which are all fantastic tools. I want to finally learn D3.js too!


The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication is available online, and don’t miss Alberto’s updates on Twitter (@albertocairo) and his website, The Functional Art

For more information about Alberto Cairo from the Infogram blog check out these posts:


Tiago_Veloso.jpgTiago Veloso is the founder and editor of Visualoop – a digital environment dedicated to all things data visualization. The website features over 2,300 detailed infographics and a collection of featured designers and collectives for you to enjoy.