Where are you in the vaccine queue?
With the UK plunged into a third national lockdown it became clear we were in a straight race against covid: inject or infect. Using data from the Office for National Statistics we gave readers an estimate of their place in the vaccine queue at both a local and national level.
Perceptions quiz
Studies show most people misunderstand societal trends. They think rare events happen often and declining occurrences are ubiquitous. Our interactive quiz challenged those perceptions, plotting the results alongside predictions from the general public and fellow Times readers.
Relaxing lockdown rules
Working with Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman and health editor Andrew Gregory we produced a front page story which outlined the concerns NHS chiefs had about the easing of coronavirus restrictions in December and the impact it would have in January. Sadly those concerns were proved right.
HMRC debt collecting
Working alongside Paul Morgan-Bentley, head of investigations for the Times, we reported that revenue officials had written to families struggling to settle bills during the pandemic and threatened to “take things you own and sell them”.
The months-long investigation found that HMRC had passed on 4.5 million personal records to private debt collectors since 2014 without taxpayers’ specific consent and how staff were incentivised to maximise takings.
The state of England’s roads
FOI-guru George Greenwood obtained figures from Highways England which showed that nearly half of the bridges on England’s busiest roads were in a state of disrepair. Of the 550 that had not been reinspected in two years 30 per cent were rated poor or very poor.
Do we want London to reach for the stars?
Do we want London to reach for the stars? In one of the most ambitious visual pieces attempted by the Times we teamed up with architecture correspondent Jonathan Morrison and 3D illustration specialists Mental Canvas to explain how the capital’s skyline has evolved since the 1960s — and what’s next for skyscrapers in the city.
The great escape of Carlos Ghosn
How did Carlos Ghosn flee Japan to become the world’s most famous fugitive? John Arlidge uncovered fascinating new detail about his escape when he met the former Nissan boss in Beirut — which we used to create a Sin City inspired graphic.
US Election
The data and digital storytelling team was heavily involved in the Times’ and the Sunday Times’ political coverage before, during and after the US election. Below is a snapshot of some of the content we are most proud of.
How coronavirus shaped the US election
Washington Correspondent Henry Zeffman and Times cartoonist Morten Morland guide us through a race for the White House like no other. We used our stories template to provide readers with a visual feast in the run up to the election.
What happens if the US election polls are wrong? We teamed up with Henry Zeffman once again to look at eight possible election night outcomes.
Homepage results
Home page data viz alert! Our election banner, updated every 30 seconds, sat at the top of the Times and Sunday Times homepage from Tuesday night until Biden’s victory was confirmed. A Times towers record.
In a real team effort our maps and charts extravaganza was launched at 9am the morning after the election. We kept the piece up-to-date over the next few days as the counting process played out.
Once Joe Biden’s victory was confirmed as the next President of the United States we looked at how the 77-year-old had secured victory. The margins by which the Democratic candidate won key states were some of the smallest in history, with postal votes securing a nail-biting win.
Trees in our cities
It began with a huge dataset noting every tree in London. Working with Rosie Kinchen we analysed other areas in the UK and created a long read exploring the future of our urban forests. We produced maps in QGIS, finessed them in illustrator and added illustrations on five of the most populous trees by Julian Osbaldstone.
‘Cells’ for rent
This piece explored how the conversion of disused shops into tiny flats is a booming business, reviving the spectre of slum housing. Scarcely bigger than a parking space and starved of natural light, the flats are becoming increasingly popular for developers who are taking advantage of relaxed planning laws and the impact of coronavirus.
Virus shifts to young as lockdown fears ease
Working with whitehall editor Chris Smyth we analysed the latest Public Health England figures on coronavirus cases by age group. It revealed that most confirmed cases are now in younger people in an “extraordinary” shift. Following the front page story Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted it was affluent young people who are catching the virus.
How safe is it for you to cycle to work?
Through combining the national accidents database with maps of Britain’s road network we worked out how many incidents involving cyclists have taken place on every road in the country.We identified the most dangerous roads for cyclists and built an interactive to let readers know how dangerous their cycle route is.
Insight investigation
Were the Ainsworths murdered by a serial killer? Working with Mental Canvas we recreated one of the crime scenes for our Insight investigation. Readers were able to explore the clues that cast doubt on the conclusion Howard Ainsworth murdered his wife Bea before killing himself.
Gangs in schools
We spoke to 1,300 schools — believed to be the largest survey of its kind — covering half a million pupils. They told us how gangs, violence and county lines drug dealing are affecting pupils as young as eight.
More than 60% of secondary schools had searched pupils, some more than once a week, using airport-style security, metal wands and sniffer dogs to find drugs and weapons in the last full academic year.
The four-story package covered reaction from the children themselves and investigated how schools are educating pupils on gang culture.
Lottery lets children gamble £350 a week
This front page investigation lifted the lid on goings on at the National Lottery. Since 2009 the percentage of sales from highly addictive scratchcards and instant-win games has soared from 24% to 43%, fuelling a rise in profits and salaries.
We also revealed that Camelot, who run the lottery, allow children to gamble up to £350 a week online. The stories piled pressure on the government, which is expected to finally raise the minimum age of playing the lottery to 18 in the coming months.
Aquind investigation
The Aquind investigation revealed for the first time the extent of Russia-linked donations to Conservative ministers, and the access that these donors have gained to the Tory party.
The investigation also revealed how a former Russian oil company tycoon who has given £100,000s to the Conservative party was able to obscure his ownership of a billion pound energy infrastructure project.
Local lockdowns
Using data from NHS England we identified areas that could be hit with lockdowns by comparing each local authority’s daily figures to their peak day. Many of the areas we highlighted went on to experience a local lockdown — including Manchester, Rochdale and Sandwell — highlighting the effectiveness of this technique.
Perceptions quiz
Inspired by studies which show that people frequently misconceive societal trends, we set 13 questions on life in Britain and put them to the public via polling company YouGov. We then put the same questions to Times readers via a slider quiz.
The resulting visualisations showed readers how their answers compared to the average response from both the public and Times readers, which updated live as more people completed the quiz.
Diamond Princess
When the Diamond Princess was quarantined back in February it had the largest Covid-19 outbreak of any location outside China. Working with Katie Glass for the Sunday Times magazine, we created a series of detailed illustrations to help add context to the story and let the reader see what life was like on board the infected ship.
Staying safe while exercising
We teamed up with science editor Tom Whipple to look at covid transmission rates during different types of exercise. The findings, based on an aerodynamics study from the Eindhoven university of technology, found that it is a lot more complex than just keeping two metres apart.
Lifting lockdown: what Britain can learn from the rest of the world
Using data from the University of Oxford we looked at how quickly governments had reacted to the pandemic, assessing the impact greater stringency had on death rates.
The data gave us the opportunity to create a scrolly chart that highlighted how many deaths each nation had at the point of lockdown and how some countries were beginning to ease restrictions.
Behind the numbers
This year we launched a new digital series called Behind the Numbers which uses statistics to explain a trend or pattern within a newsworthy topic.
In the first piece in the series we investigated why more men are dying of coronavirus than women.
In the second, we explained the complexities that come with recording deaths in the UK and why it means using the daily mortality count for Covid-19 can be misleading.
When will a coronavirus vaccine be ready?
Working with science correspondent Rhys Blakely we produced a set of visuals to help explain the inside story of the scientific race to protect us from Covid-19.
We wanted to show readers — in layman’s terms — how vaccines work, how they are created and some of the different types currently in development.
How many coronavirus cases are being recorded in the UK?
We launched our UK tracker page at the beginning of March and have been updating it on a daily basis.
Using feedback in the comments section and on Twitter we have tweaked the visuals on numerous occasions to make sure we’re telling the story in a clear and accurate way.
The page is the most viewed page published on the Times website so far this year.
Lockdown is breath of fresh air for British cities
We analysed levels of nitrogen dioxide, a harmful gas produced by fossil fuels, and compared it with readings from last year to show one benefit of the lockdown: pollution levels have halved in British cities.
As well as small multiple charts showing how levels of NO2 have changed in the UK, our show-stopping visual for this was an animated map that revealed the impact of lockdown across the continent.
The race to be the Democrat candidate
Working with Washington Correspondent Henry Zeffman we created a digital guide to the US primaries, with visuals helping tell the story as candidates bid to become the Democrat nominee to go up against Donald Trump in November.
The coronavirus outbreak in maps and charts
The coronavirus outbreak has dominated the headlines so far this year, with the visual representation of the spread of the virus a key part of the coverage for a number of major news organisations.
This has led to much discussion around how to responsibly visualise the outbreak and after a number of iterations we have settled on a series of charts and maps which we believe accurately and responsibly tell the story.
We have streamlined our data processes to ensure the graphics are kept up to date and they are being used across our coverage to contextualise the global epidemics.
Inside the Times
From Anthony Loyd’s epic search for Shamima Begum to Christina Lamb’s exposé of cobalt production in the Congo, listen the inside story of our biggest scoops in this 10 episode audio series.
Houses of Lords expenses
The team’s first front page story of 2020 came in the Sunday Times as we revealed that the cost of Lords’ expenses and daily attendance allowance rose by 29% to £23m in just one year.
The average tax-free payment was £30,827, higher than the median salary of a UK worker, while 31 lords claimed more in expenses than the standard take-home pay of an MP.
Our analysis revealed that the latest round of peerages is expected to bring the total number of lords to 834, the highest since Tony Blair axed the majority of hereditary peers in 1999.
More than 110 peers did not make any spoken or written contribution to the House during the period, but claimed a total of more than £1m in expenses.
We produced a searchable table so our digital readers could see which Lords had claimed the most.
Innocent are left with enormous bills after cutbacks in legal aid
Our investigation revealed how tens of thousands of people have been left out of pocket after being acquitted of serious crimes over the past four years because the government ended the reimbursement of legal fees.
The investigation saw the launch of the first article in a new series, which will look at the numbers behind the story to provide context to our data-driven investigations.
Ten years of Tory rule: the long and short of cabinet careers
Ahead of Boris Johnson’s cabinet reshuffle we created our biggest ever* interactive, showing every cabinet from a decade of Tory rule.
Working alongside Red Box editor Matt Chorley this revealed how an early commitment by David Cameron to keep ministers in their roles was followed by huge churn under Theresa May as Brexit led to wave after wave of resignations.
The chart was made even more striking by Boris Johnson’s decision to promote a series of new faces to the top table.
*the longest we can remember, at least!
The Thousand Mile Trial: Confessions of an electric car virgin
The car industry is bracing itself for 2020 to be a breakthrough year for pure electric cars, with the number of models in British showrooms set to more than double and annual sales of zero-emission passenger cars potentially breaking through the 100,000 mark.
This led to the business desk launching a six-part series on the future of motoring in the UK and what part the electric car might play.
As part of the series Robert Lea considers what pure models are available, how far they go on a charge and how much they cost. This culminated in his attempt to recreate the famous London — Edinburgh — London road trip of 1900.
His road trip gave us the opportunity to build a scrolly-telling special, showing the details of his thousand mile journey around the UK in a Nissan Leaf, complete with thrills, chills and just a little emotional trauma.
