Bin Laden's bunker in Tora Bora

When we talk about bad practices in infographics somo of us use to draw one clear example in our brains. The biggest example of plagiarism, absolute lack of rigor and the most 'creative' infographic in the last years. Here you are Bin Laden's bunker in Tora Bora

Photo: mstrmnd.com

I don't know where was it published in Spain, not even if this one is an actual graphic published in media, but there were not just one, but some newspaper in Spain and around the world which published an exact copy of this graphic. Even with the same words. I don't know also which one was the first newspaper publishing it. But, what I think it's clear, is that nobody went into the bunker to get the data, neither had a secret document from the army with the blueprints.

What I remember clearly is that I was staff at Malofiej that year. And there were four entries with the very same graphic. Same drawing, with little changes. Same words just translated sometimes. One of those graphics that someone invented and started spreading internationally.

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Copies and plagiarism. They are not the same thing

Many people come to Público's infographics department to say that we're being very orginal with our graphics. I use to answer that we're not. We're just very good copying ideas. We have selected the existing styles that we think that fits with our style and our ideas on how to explain thing. The graphics with balls, used by almost everyone nowadays, the caudal graphics and many other things have been seen before at The New York Times or The Guardian. And they had seen them before on Fortune and Minard... And, as Zarracina says, "we're all copying Playfair". And I also would say Leonardo da Vinci.


One of William Playfair's graphic, creator of charts.

On graphics, as on every kind of culture, almost everything has been invented yet. Many of the biggests advances are just reinterpretations and rescues of things done before.

For example, I love this Nigel Holmes' graphic.



So I was very surprised when I discovered a collection of look alikes on BibliOdyssey.



And not just those. Gonzalo Peltzer sent me this pair of new examples.





MAybe many of you would know them before. But I didn't. And this is not a problem for me. Holmes had to explain this data. And this was a very good way of doing. It was done before, yes, but the reader deserves the best explanations, not just the newest one. If we can give a new one that improves the others, that a great great plus.
But those who work on newspapers know that many times some articles are forgotten just because other newspaper publish them before. So we punish our owen readers.
On my opinion, this have no sense. Being original must not be a problem, but an advantage.
OK, we should not copy, don't tell where we found something, sign in and sell that as our own. But that's a different story.

Soemtimes we're asked for something original. And some proposals are using analog illustrations for the bars. As we can see on these examples of Spain at 30's. When letterset was high-tech.


Image from Malofiej 14 book, frome Fermín Vílchez's article 'Origin and evolution of graphics in Spain, 1856-1936

So, now George Rorick could come to claim his copyright for the weather maps made on 80's at USA Today.

Improving copy by copy

The New York Times has published another graphic about last year american soldiers casualties in Iraq. An improved version of the controverted graphic published by themselves and The Independent.





At the end, copy by copy the graphic has improved. I don't know if The New York Times ever knew about the graphic published by The Independent, but they have seized the details that the english paper used to make the graphic more easily understandable: the color. Trtuth is that this data (casualtis by date at the last year) are easier to organize, but, in my opinion, color has given the graphic a new dimension, creating another information layer in such easy and basic way. Simple ideas. They work.

War twins

Just five days between these two graphics. First one is form The New York Times, published on February 3rd, a very complete and exhaustive graphic. The second one is the The Independent cover published two days ago. The truth is what I like the most is the second one, but they had most of the work done.. Inspiration was not a problem for them





Vía Innovations in Newspapers

Clone Wars

Firt of this graphics was uploaded this december, 5th at Newspagedesigner, signed by Christopher Arnold, from Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. It was told to be with a piece about fluor in water and tooth risks. Eight hours later, Cindy Jones-Hulfachor, from South Florida Sun-Sentinel, uploaded the other one. She assured that this graphic was made by her six years ago, with an information about how to solve some tooth problems.

It's not the first time this happens. Just some months ago, Amir Shaik, from The Times of India, uploaded in NPD the first one of the other pair of images, completely different of his own styles.
The second one was uploaded by Steve Wilson, from Fort Worth Star-Telegram, just few days before in the same web. Amir just flipped the image (changing heart side) and erased the nipples. Plagiarism was clear. Steve wrote Amir asking about it, and all the indian said was that he's very young and he loves Steve's graphics.
There are evident things. It's a usual practice, fomented by big bosses, just copyng other graphic information. Some ask for a copy of the graphic itself. You could try to justify it talking about lack of time, putting the blame on your boss and a thousand excuses. It's not ethical, but if you sign it with the real author as source could be forgiven. Soemtimes, bosses just don't permit you to add another newspaper as source... But what you can't never do is signing it with your own name.
One step further is the "Print screen" button, unadmissable. But just sign it and upload it with your name is going tooooooo far. Posting it to competitions could be the biggest shame. But it's not so unusual. I remeber my Malofiej staff times with several graphics showing Bin Laden's cave... There were some idetic graphics... And I can't imagine Bin LAden offering his house blueprints to media... I also remeber a illustration of a taliban made by Emilio Amade (I think) for El Mundo just after 9-11, which became the standar taliban in lots of graphics all around the world. It's not exclusive of infographics world, but it's something to worry about.