This is an odd question. Data has always been visualized in traditional reporting, even if that’s only through the visual representation of numbers (i.e. whether I say that value is 12.31 or a bar ||||||||| (this) wide. Both are visuals that communicate with different qualities and emphasis).

I’m assuming the question is intended to be more about traditional vs. more modern ways of communicating data. In that case…

Traditional reporting tends towards:

• High specificity: tables, tables, tables. Good for knowing exact values. Bad for communicating the real value or context of those numbers.
• Static data methods: Whether a monthly excel spreadsheet, powerpoint, or PDF report, the results are rather fixed, with little to no room for exploring other questions not already answered. One may argue that excel provides full flexibility, but in practice this isn’t very true since these rows are often already highly aggregated and you have to generally be an expert in excel to answer some very common sense questions.
• Poor design: Relatively speaking, little design thinking used to be applied to reporting methods. In response, phrases like chart junk, data-to-ink ratio, and context + focus emerged to describe techniques with more design thinking applied.

Modern Reporting tends towards:

• Seeing patterns: Instead of leading with specific values, starting with the context of values allows anyone to recognize patterns and discern their relative importance more easily. Only after seeing areas of interest is the focus set on the specific values. This is context + focus in a nutshell.
• Self-serve, flexible data answers: data visualization design methods, whether in an interactive web based form or not, allow more data to be assessed more quickly. On the web it may be accomplished through techniques like dynamic filtering, or in print through things like small multiples (basically, lots of small snapshots of the same chart allowing vast amounts of data to be compared). The best web-based reporting is also always up to date, so if you need an answer half-way through the month you don’t need to wait another 2 weeks to get it.
• Better design: Data is like a 21st century paint. It’s a new medium to be mastered by art and design to speak to the world, and, hopefully, tell it something worthwhile. Modern reporting favors what is easy for people to understand and work with, instead of what’s easy for programming and databases to work with.