NYT spends half a million on infographics? Every month?
Andy Eggers — a PhD student in Government at Harvard — posted in his Social Science Statistics blog today about a class visit by Amanda Cox of the New York Times graphics department.
Amanda spoke about how the Times handles statistical uncertainty, abstraction and scatterplots.
The last graf caught my eye, though:
The audience at the talk, much of which studies the media in some capacity and nearly all of which reads the NYT, seemed hungry for some analysis of the economics behind the paper’s decision to invest so much in graphics. (Amanda said the paper spends $500,000 a month on the department.) Amanda wasn’t really able to shed too much light on this, but said she felt very fortunate to be at a paper that lets her publish regression trees when, at many papers, the graphics team is four people who have their hands full producing “fun facts” sidebars and illustrations of car crash sites.
The Times spends a half-million? On infographics? Every month?
Six million dollars a year? Geez, that’s enough to make Col. Steve Austin run 60 mph.
OK, let’s figure this out…
Let’s say the NYT has a 30-person graphics staff (as reported in that same blog two days earlier.) Let’s say the NYT pays its average graphics staffer $75,000 a year. Yeah, that’s almost twice what many news artists get, but hey, New York rents ain’t cheap.
Simple addition: That’s $2.25 million a year in salary alone. If you factor in benefits — and why not; all the folks who complain about high salaries in the auto industry are including benefits — you’re over five million a year right there.
And then there are laptops. Software. Travel — because the NYT covers damn near everything — and well, too.
It makes sense. Even without trying to contact Steve Duenes or Archie Tse or Charles Blow for confirmation. (Be my guest; I’d prefer not to embarrass myself further).
Duenes — the NYT’s graphics director — has called Amanda the Times‘ “statistics maven.” She was one of four people who worked on this wonderful piece. She was one of three on this one. She did this one herself.
Find another of Amanda’s graphics here. Read Edward Tufte’s critique of this piece here.
Oh, and while you’re in an infographic mood, zip over to Poynter to read Sara Quinn’s interview with Laura Stanton of the Washington Post.