No wonder news programs don't invite designers on to debate. What a terribly naive position. Information Graphics are not new they are just short hand for the reader to understand multiple points of a story in one image. Like the Guardian's where does our tax money go chart or the IED map in Afghanistan. It shows the reader the scale and perspective of the situation. Surely Edward R Tufte has said most things on this in his 3 books. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi
Newsnight debate on infographics. See CR for full article and debate.
I think the crowd sourced map for buses in India was a great idea. Showing how information graphics can be useful. John Maeda said Programmers are the new designers and I think he's right. The question is not if it looks pretty its a question of does it work and is it useful. We are learning to disseminate and question information in many more ways and a whole lot faster tahn ever before. Surely this short hand is the out come of this cultural shift.
