How news organizations are using data to tell stories

Peter VerweijD3-Media

Tbilisi November 2013

Is data journalism really the new kid on the block?

1854 London Dr Snow Cholera map1967 Detroit Riots Ph Meyer using IBM mainframe for survey

Data Journalism is at least 50 years old

• But known under different names• Precision Journalism(Meyer)• Analytical Journalism (Johnson)• Computer Assisted Research and Reporting(IRE/Nicar)• Data Journalism

• Common denominator: use the tools of science to improve quality of reporting

Riots in The UK 2011 by The GuardianC:\Users\peter\Desktop\hdc\Data-journalists are the new punks_ Simon Rogers at TEDxPantheonSorbonne.mp4

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2011/aug/16/riots-poverty-map

Data speaking truth to power: refuting claim PM Cameron about povertyFree softwareEasy to use

Traffic accidents From Database: 2000 accidents Top ten Dangerous junctions Map is the story

Simple spreadsheet Geo coding and mapping Story telling Convergence

Final Scores Elementary schoolsOnline version by RTL: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/special/publicatie-cito-scores-kijk-hoe-jouw-school-scoort

Hardcopy by NRC: different angle

Based on excelMapping and simple grapicsScraping data from RTLAdding other data

Crime mappingHere is what the LA Times is doinghttp://maps.latimes.com/crime/

Typical American, because of public recordsNot real story telling or reporting just info

Sovereign RatingsGuardian published the data:http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/30/credit-ratings-country-fitch-moodys-standard?INTCMP=SRCH

Visualization of the data with TableauWorksheet could published embedded

Members of the ParliamentNRC representation of the members by age, gender, education, address/city

Scraping dataSimple graphics

Sanitation at elementary schools and drop out in Kibera Nairobi Kenyahttp://www.icfj.org/news/data-%E2%80%9Cboot-camp%E2%80%9D-helps-kenyan-reporter-expose-school-sanitation-woes

Simple data collectionTurning into multi media story telling

Social network AnalysisStructuring the public debates:Twitter network 500 SA journalists

http://memeburn.com/2012/07/how-to-make-your-journalistic-twitter-network-rock-a-case-study/

More advancedSteep learning curveNew angle to decision making and power distribution

Conclusions 1Journalism is not only text but also numbers;Attention to numeracy; how to work with numbers; A little statistics is basic knowledge, for example:Robert Niles; doing spreadsheets without any idea about statistics does not work.http://www.robertniles.com/stats/

Knowledge about software: excel, scraping, mapping ,visualizing , embedded linksBut software change fast: learn yourself new software

Data Journalism is team work

Conclusions 2

High end: R project or SPSS for detailed statistics; Hire a specialist from the university for advanced statisticsFor difficult scraping and hacking a database: hire a coder from your IT department that is hosting the on line or employ him/her in the newsroom

How to get started?- start with interesting colleagues in data journalism- start with training the basic skills- start small- come up with a feasible story idea and available data- create a budget- create a team division of labor- have back up in case you get stuck- involve the editor and management- report step by step and decide whether to continue or not- write a plan based on a story idea: what is your news/expected outcome; think about how to publish; convergence hard copy and online.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

•E-mail: peter@d3-media.nl•Twitter: peter_verweij•Blog: http://d3-media.blogspot.nl/