“If Bush Tax Cuts Expire” Fox News Infographic

This  simple bar graph titles “Top Tax Rate”  aired as part of a 2012 Fox News broadcast discussing changing tax rates durring the Obama Administration. The graph depicts the return to the Clinton-era tax rate of 39.6 percent on the top income bracket, from the Bush-era rate of 35 percent. 

While this graph is one of many graphics that air every day on media networks like Fox News, it is a articularly agregious example of skewed data visualization. While the difference in the two stats being showed is only 4.6% the larger of the two bars is nearly 6 times the height of the smaller. 

When data visualizations are made design decisions such as scale, color and positioning are purposeful and important to the understanding of the data being shown. In this example it is easy to see how a viewer may leave with an innacurate impression of reality.