“One of the first things you have to decide on with a musical is why should there be songs.”
The person speaking is Stephen Sondheim, the writer of some of the best songs for musicals in the 20th century, who died in November aged 91.
You can put songs in any story, but what I think you have to look for is, why are songs necessary to this story? If it’s unnecessary, then the show generally turns out to be not very good.
I’m no Sondheim, but as an editor I won’t put a graph into any story unless it is absolutely necessary to tell the story.
When I do, the picture can be worth at least the 800 words that accompany it.
So here are my 10 favourites from the business and economy stories I edited for The Conversation in 2021.
Some of the best graphs remove doubt
This graph, from the Bureau of Statistics, leaves no doubt about what happens to consumer spending when lockdowns end.