Data Vis Dispatch, March 18: Animals, tariffs, and a Dispatch reader survey
Welcome back to the 185th edition of Data Vis Dispatch! Every week, we’ll be publishing a collection of the best small and large data visualizations we find, especially from news organizations — to celebrate data journalism, data visualization, simple charts, elaborate maps, and their creators
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Recurring topics this week include (very small) animal species, U.S. tariffs, and (very fast) cars.
Animals snuck into this week's data visualizations. What do they sound like? And how many of them do we actually know?

From the hiss and growl of animals to the hum of mechanics Formula 1 takes cars to the extreme:
![Nexo Jornal: <a href="https://www.nexojornal.com.br/grafico/2025/03/14/formula-1-pilotos-brasileiros-historico"><strong>O número de brasileiros na Fórmula 1 ao longo dos anos</strong></a> [<em>The number of Brazilians in Formula 1 over the years</em>], March 14](https://datawrapper.de/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,width=1420,f=auto,fit=cover/https://kirby.datawrapper.de/media/pages/blog/data-vis-dispatch-march-18-2025/185cf811d0-1742304942/image20.png)
In the wake of a measles outbreak in Texas and cuts to U.S. foreign aid, the New York Times ran several articles on vaccines:

Another thing Trump says he wants to slash: the U.S. trade deficit. His tool of choice is tariffs:

![De Tijd: <a href="https://multimedia.tijd.be/trump-tarieven/"><strong>Trumps tarieven zullen zijn handelstekort niet oplossen</strong></a> [<em>Chart title: United States trade deficit has grown especially in the last decade</em>], March 13](https://datawrapper.de/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,width=1420,f=auto,fit=cover/https://kirby.datawrapper.de/media/pages/blog/data-vis-dispatch-march-18-2025/b3b47c08eb-1742305025/image9.png)
Where else did we find Trump in the vis world this past week? That's right — plummeting line charts:
![Der Spiegel: <a href="https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/donald-trump-diese-tech-bosse-jubelten-beim-amtsantritt-jetzt-sind-sie-viele-milliarden-dollar-aermer-a-b2d292b2-689c-42ae-baff-7787316edc08"><strong>Diese Techbosse jubelten bei Trumps Amtsantritt – jetzt sind sie viele Milliarden Dollar ärmer</strong></a><strong> </strong>[<em>These tech bosses cheered when Trump took office – now they are many billions of dollars poorer</em>], March 11](https://datawrapper.de/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,width=1990,f=auto,fit=cover/https://kirby.datawrapper.de/media/pages/blog/data-vis-dispatch-march-18-2025/ff13608884-1742220420/cleanshot-2025-03-17-at-15.03.43@2x.png)

Let's leave Trump for today, but stay with U.S. society. What do people there believe in? What do they do all day?


Off to the Asian continent:


From the Indian Ocean to the Baltic Sea, maps of trade and transit:


Other economic topics included falling inflation in Argentina and rising production value of pineapples:
![La Nación: <a href="https://www.lanacion.com.ar/economia/pausa-en-la-desinflacion-el-ipc-de-febrero-fue-de-24-y-acumulo-47-en-el-primer-bimestre-nid14032025/"><strong>Dato oficial: la inflación de febrero fue de 2,4% y acumuló 4,7% en el primer bimestre</strong></a> [<em>Official data: February inflation was 2.4% and accumulated 4.7% in the first two months</em>], March 14](https://datawrapper.de/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,width=1420,f=auto,fit=cover/https://kirby.datawrapper.de/media/pages/blog/data-vis-dispatch-march-18-2025/1d1fd29eb5-1742305149/image12.png)

We're calling these visualizations Spike Cities:


It's been a while since we last posted charts from the #TidyTuesday challenge. So here we go — this week was all about Pixar film ratings:
![Georgios Karamanis: "When critics and audiences disagree for this week's #TidyTuesday [...]," March 12 (<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/karaman.is/post/3lk6sycnf6k2t"><strong>Bluesky</strong></a>)](https://datawrapper.de/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,width=1420,f=auto,fit=cover/https://kirby.datawrapper.de/media/pages/blog/data-vis-dispatch-march-18-2025/eeaccb8a80-1742305203/image6.png)

Next, a topic that's on everyone's lips: artificial intelligence. The widespread use of AI currently comes with problems such as energy consumption and wrong citations:


Finally, housing shortages and Spain's outdated prisoner assessment algorithm:

What else we found interesting



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A graphics assignment editor at The Washington Post
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