Data Journalism 101: A Brief Survey
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Data journalism encompasses gathering, analyzing, and publishing data to enhance reporting, allowing journalists to uncover invisible stories and verify claims authoritatively. It includes challenges such as the need for data skills and ethical considerations, while providing opportunities for transparency and new narrative forms through data-driven investigations and visualizations. Prominent practitioners and open data sources play a crucial role in the evolution and practice of data journalism.
Data Journalism 101: A Brief Survey
- 1. Data Journalism 101 July 19, 2016
- 2. What is Data Journalism? “Gathering, cleaning, organizing, analyzing, visualizing and publishing data to support the creation of acts of journalism.” The Art and Science of Data-Driven Journalism, Tow Center for Digital Journalism
- 3. FiveThirtyEight’s Model Collect relevant data with range of methods Organize as needed, such as chronologically or in order of importance (the inverted pyramid) Go beyond the “who”, “what”, “where” and “when” questions to those of why and how Use specific cases to shed light on larger issues
- 4. The Last Step: Publishing Data and Methods Verifiability ● Ability to check sources, codes, or math used Reproducibility ● Can conduct same analysis and obtain results Reusability ● Can run same analysis on updated data, or new analysis on same data
- 5. Democratization of Data The idea of helping everybody to access and understand data: ● Making the data available ● Open sourcing data tools ● Democratizing the data collection itself “Better tools will emerge that democratize data skills” The Art and Science of Data-Driven Journalism, Tow Center for Digital Journalism
- 6. Why Does Data Journalism Matter? “Reporting has always involved numbers. Today, technology enables journalists to use numbers less anecdotally, more authoritatively, and to uncover otherwise invisible stories.” Samantha Sunne, American Press Institute
- 7. What Can Data Do for Journalism? ● More authoritatively verify claims ● Find new stories ● Tackle bigger stories ● Illuminate murky issues ● Offer detail and distance ● Offers potential to be more transparent ● Can make reporting more efficient
- 8. Challenges in Data Journalism Lack of data skills ● Workshops by outside contractors or data team ● Data “boot camps” ● Online courses ● Collaboration with networks (IRE, Global Investigative Journalism Network) Expectations of 24/7 news cycle ● Fact-checking with thorough analysis ● Publishing data Ethical concerns
- 9. Categories of Data Journalism Data Visualization Best interactive or static visualisation based on data. May be self-contained or combined with a story, but must accomplish a journalistic purpose and use data significantly. Data-Driven Investigation Best data-driven investigation, which uses data collection and analysis to disclose or spotlight a significant abuse of power or failure to uphold the public interest. News Data App Interactivity is important and the project provides both explanation of the topic and an opportunity for users to explore the topic and create their own story.
- 10. Who Should We Look to?
- 11. Leading Practitioners ● Nate Silver: Founder/Editor-in-Chief of FiveThirtyEight ● Brian Boyer: Editor at NPR visuals, formerly at the Chicago Tribune ● Sisi Wei: Investigative journalist and developer at ProPublica ● Ezra Klein: Founder of Vox.com ● Mona Chalabi: Data Editor at the Guardian US, columnist at NYMag
- 12. ● Census data: http://www.census.gov/data.html ● Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/cew/opendata.htm ● FBI crime statistics: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats ● Campaign finance: http://www.fec.gov/finance/disclosure/ftp_download.shtml ● Local budgets: https://data.cityofchicago.org/ Common Open Data Sources
- 13. Some Noteworthy Examples Breaking News ● Al Jazeera: “Derailed Amtrak train sped sped into deadly crash curve” ● Periodically download data from Amtrak’s “Track a Train” feature Open Data ● Berlingske: “#Tracked” ● Collected and published collected metadata – browser history, phone apps, etc. Data-Driven Investigation ● ProPublica: “We Blew $17 Billion in Afghanistan” ● Used 200 audits, special projects and inspections done by SIGAR since 2009
- 14. Looking Locally: Data-Driven Apps & Reporting Chicago Tribune: Illinois School Report Card ProPublica: Debt By Degrees The Chicago Reporter: Settling for Misconduct The Chicago Reporter: Disparate nursing home care
- 15. Key Benefits Data journalism opens up exciting new opportunities: ● To verify sources and analysis empirically ● To discover new areas for potential stories ● To democratize data for social good Using data, journalists can illuminate hidden issues with transparency and detail
- 16. But Data Isn’t Everything “Data is quite good at the ‘Whats’, but it’s never going to get at the ‘Why’. … It’s either going to build the foundation for a story or create some context for a story, but it’s never going to be the whole story.” Alex Richards, Investigative Data Reporter