I think you are underestimating the importance of a shared understanding of technical possibilities. Even if those people are not going to use visualizations in

I think you are underestimating the importance of a shared understanding of technical possibilities. Even if those people are not going to use visualizations in their own daily work (and almost all won't), it still enables them to reason about it much more creatively and communicate what they would like to see with their more spezialized colleagues. For example, the NY Times website has shown a stunning amount of great visualization in recent years. This might not have been possible without the people who tell the stories being able to imagine how to combine it with visual additions. I think this is something that goes beyond the combination of journalism and visualization. It's literally like learning a common language.