People have limited empathy reserves, and a lot of things are competing for them. This overloading can cause people to ignore news items entirely. It's a hard question to ask, but how do we decide to what degree and regarding which people, topics or situations we deploy these calls for empathy?
Empathy can also lead to increased bias in decision-makers, sometimes causing resource usage that unfairly disadvantages certain groups. At the same time, it can lead to attitude changes that reduce stereotype-based prejudice or stigmatization. What impact do news cycles and popularized data visualization have on each?
What are characteristics of pieces that may benefit from more or less complex graphics? How are we deciding what to include, and what to leave out?