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(This article was first published on <strong><a href="http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2018/06/ft-bbc-uses-r.html"> Revolutions</a></strong>, and kindly contributed to <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.r-bloggers.com/">R-bloggers)</a> </div>
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<p>While graphics guru Edward Tufte <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2018/06/ft-bbc-uses-r.html#Rstats%20coders%20and%20users%20just%20can%27t%20do%20words%20on%20graphics%20and%20typography" target="_blank">recently claimed</a> that &quot;R coders and users just can't do words on graphics and typography&quot; and need additonal tools to make graphics that aren't &quot;clunky&quot;, data journalists at major publications beg to differ. The BBC has been creating graphics &quot;<a rel="nofollow" href="https://twitter.com/chrisjeavans/status/1011694262935834629" target="_blank">purely in R</a>&quot; for some time, with a typography style matching that of the BBC website. Senior BBC Data Journalist Christine Jeavans offers several examples, including <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43726436" target="_blank">this chart</a> of life expectancy differences between men and women:</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43726436" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="BBC-gender" title="BBC-gender" src="http://revolution-computing.typepad.com/.a/6a010534b1db25970b022ad37c8b5c200d-800wi"></a></p>
<p>… and <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43668187" target="_blank">this chart</a> on gender pay gaps at large British banks:</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-43668187" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="BBC-pay" title="BBC-pay" src="http://revolution-computing.typepad.com/.a/6a010534b1db25970b022ad35697d5200c-800wi"></a></p>
<p>Meanwhile, the <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.ft.com/content/e4a5012e-6e3e-11e8-92d3-6c13e5c92914" target="_blank">chart below</a> was made for the Financial Times using just R and the ggplot2 package, &quot;down to the custom FT font and the white bar in the top left&quot;, <a rel="nofollow" href="https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1006779901519843328" target="_blank">according to</a> data journalist John Burn-Murdoch.</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.ft.com/content/e4a5012e-6e3e-11e8-92d3-6c13e5c92914" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="FT-world-cup" title="FT-world-cup" src="http://revolution-computing.typepad.com/.a/6a010534b1db25970b022ad3569819200c-800wi"></a></p>
<p>There are also entire collections devoted to <a rel="nofollow" href="http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2016/04/tufte-style-graphics-in-r.html" target="_blank">recreating Tufte's own visualizations in R</a>, presumably meeting his typography standards. Tufte later <a rel="nofollow" href="https://twitter.com/EdwardTufte/status/1011719432148869121" target="_blank">clarified</a> saying &quot;Problem is not code, problem is published practice&quot;, which is true of any programming environment, which is why it was strange that he'd call out R in particular.</p>
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