The daily News has used different colored scales for Corona cards on television and on the web. This inconsistent presentation has caused confusion and criticism. But there was no manipulation.
From Patrick Gensing, Editor ARD fact finder The daily News is accused of having manipulated the color scale of Corona cards in order to depict the infection situation more dramatically. On social media like Twitter, there are two daily News-Graphs showing the seven-day incidence of counties in Germany that actually use different color scales – one from March 17, 2021 with lighter colors, one from April 9 with darker ones.
Where do the cards come from?
Both graphics are representations of ARD news. The cards were both on the Instagram channel of daily News released. The card with the lighter scale is based on TV reports from the daily News. The template is rarely used, however, as the detailed representation of counties on television is more difficult to see. In addition, it is not possible to click on individual districts and view the incidence. The map with the darker color scale is based on the representation of the incidence maps tagesschau.de. Corona graphics are an important part of reporting on the pandemic. The map enables users to view the values for the respective cities or districts. The first version of this map went online in October 2020.
Have the colors been changed?
The color scale of the Corona card, which was allegedly tampered with, has not been changed; however, new classes were added in the course of the pandemic, as the incidence has risen sharply. In the first version of the district / city map, the highest class was the incidence values of 50 or more cases per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days. At the end of October this class was divided into 50-100 and from 100. The class 50-100 retained the color value of the class from 50. The new class from 100 received an additional darker shade of red. The unchanged classes kept their color values. In view of the increasing incidence, the class from 100 cases was then divided in mid-December – into the two classes 100-200 and from 200. The class 100-200 retained the color value of the previous class from 100. The new class from 200 received an additional darker one Shade of red. All other classes kept their color values. This classification continues to apply.
No manipulation
Because of the dynamic infection process, the highest classes have been divided – additional shades of red have been introduced for the new classes. The presentation of the previous classes has always remained the same. The last expansion took place in mid-December, since then the classification of the classes has not been expanded. Would have daily News Incidentally, if the classes were not expanded, there would currently be no differences in the incidence on the map, since almost all districts and cities have had more than 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days for weeks.
Different graphics
However, the different representations for television and online caused understandable confusion and criticism, because the fact that two cards with different colored bezels were used leaves room for speculation. The editor-in-chief of ARD news explains: “We are sorry if the use of the different graphics led to misunderstandings or irritations.” Juliane Leopold, editor-in-chief at Digitales, said it could make sense to take into account the differences in the playout channels such as linear television and the web and to design graphics in such a way that they can be easily recognized ARD news. The daily News But I decided to align television and the digital output channels. The case shows that it makes sense to present a uniform cross-media presentation, said Leopold. She announced that the previously used color gamut will be on tagesschau.de retained and in future uniformly on all play-out channels of the daily News will be used.
Alleged manipulation of weather maps
In 2019 the daily News was accused of manipulating weather maps for ideological reasons. At that time, however, two cards were compared that show different things.
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