Emotion can make or break your data story.
I’ve written about pathos a few times here on The Plot (see this and this article, for example). What is pathos, exactly? It’s one of the pillars of rhetoric that Aristotle came up with, hence the fancy-sounding name. The idea behind it is simple. Regardless of what you’re communicating, your message will be more likely to get across if you appeal not only to our thinking brain but also to our feeling brain.
When I said the concept was simple, I wasn’t completely honest with you. It’s straightforward to understand what it means. You can use humour, interaction, or a bit of drama to appeal to our emotions. You get it. It’s much less straightforward in practice though. I teach pathos in my data storytelling courses and the reaction is usually unanimous: it’s an eye-opening idea that is tricky to implement in the real world.
So to help you in the journey of including pathos in your data work, I’ll be sharing good examples every other month or so. Starting today.

Last November, I helped design the Climate Finance Files for ONE Campaign—a story on climate financing and how complicated and exaggerated it is. Spoiler alert: 1 in 5 dollars that are supposedly going to countries affected by climate change doesn’t exist. It’s pretty much just empty words (or rather, empty numbers). I’ll let you read the details of this crucial research yourself.
What I want to focus on is my favourite paragraph in the article. The overall tone of the story is serious—as it should be when you’re explaining months of unprecedented research—but some sections break that rule. The paragraph below covers examples of outrageous climate finance reporting in a witty, amusing tone.

Here is the paragraph again with all the links:
The lack of standardised reporting rules invariably results in other forms of creative accounting. Should financing a coal-fired power plant be considered climate finance? If you’re Japan, the answer is repeatedly yes. Should financing a hotel? The US thinks so. A chocolate shop? If you’re shaking your head no, Italy would like a word. What about championing the use of natural gas (Japan and US), outfitting police (Italy), or fighting terrorism (the EU and Italy)?
It’s genius, isn’t it? I’ve read the story dozens of times but this paragraph still makes me chuckle. It’s probably the moment in the article I remember the most. Why? You guessed it, because it’s pathos-based. It’s a brilliant illustration of how introducing non-brainy elements to a data story doesn’t take anything away from it. Instead, it makes it more poignant.
Hope that inspired you—thanks for reading! ✨
P.S. We surpassed the 2,000 reader mark this week! 🥳 I’m thrilled to have you all here—whether you’ve just joined or have been around for a while. If you’d like me to cover specific topics, reply to this email to let me know!
See you next week,
—Evelina
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