"Data Journalism"

Jessica Mariani jessica.mariani@univr.it Source: The Handbook of Data Journalism Paul Bradshaw – Birmingham City University I the past we, as an industry, relied on being the only ones operating a technology to multiply and distribute what had happened over night. The printing press served as a gateway, if anybody wanted to reach the people of a city or region the next morning, they would turn to newspapers. This is over!!!! Today news stories are flowing in as they happen, from multiple sources, eye-witnesses, blogs and what has happened is filtered through a vast network of social connections, being ranked, commented and more often than not ignored. This is why data journalism is so important. Gathering, filtering and visualizing what is happening beyond what the eye can see has a growing value. What is Data Journalism? Both data a d jour alis are trou leso e ter s. People usually think of data as any collection of numbers, most likely gathered on a spreadsheet. 20 years ago, that was the only sort of data that journalists dealt with. But we live in a digital world now, a world in which al ost a ythi g a e — a d al ost e erythi g is — described with numbers. Data Journalism Data journalism divides into three broad types that often overlap: 1. Traditional investigative data journalism, often called CAR finding stories in the data – with or without visualisations 2. Using the data to tell a story or explain a complex problem – this will involve graphics or isualisatio s 3. Providing a service or a tool that tells the reader something personally relevant - school score cards / tables or simple financial tools and calculators What makes data journalism different to the rest of journalism? The possibility to combine the t aditio al ose fo e s and the ability to tell a compelling story, with the sheer scale and range of digital information now available. How is this related to language? The language of this journalism genre is Data! Data go through a Communication Process and are part of multimodal journalism and visual grammar Little points of information that are often not relevant in a single instance, but massively important when viewed from the right angle. What is Visual Grammar? Communication requires language That language can be oral as in the spoken word, it can be gestural as in sign language, or it can be visual as in design. The more you understand any language the better you can communicate using that language. The visual language of design is no exception. Interested in the topic? The reason for writing a grammar of visual language is the same as for any language: to define its basic elements, describe its patterns and processes, and to understand the relationship between the individual elements in the system. Visual language has no formal syntax or semantics, but the visual objects themselves can be classified. Getting Started with Data Journalism How to produce effective data journalism Data Journalism is also intertwined with Citizen Journalism It can be a form of Participatory Journalism Data Journalism Tips • It is the stories in the numbers that are interesting NOT the numbers by themselves • Give your data a human face if you can with case studies or by making it personally relevant • Investigative journalism can take a long time – Keep focused and work with experts for the best outcome: investigative / data journalists, statisticians, developers, designers • Clean your data and triple check it – there are ALWAYS errors • Plan publication and partner with a range of outlets for maximum coverage • Always have a page where you explain your methodology • Be prepared to respond to critics and staff to cover corrections and feedback Data Visualisation Tips • Help ou eade s to u de sta d so ethi g o ple , do t just make data art • Keep your user in mind all the time. Remember you are not a normal user so your judgement is not the best yardstick • Always test your designs with users and iterate on the feedback • Be aware some people hate graphs. You will never win them over • Ci les a e pe ei ed as o e f ie dl • “e ue tial NEXT optio s ill ofte get o e li ks tha EXPLO‘E • Consider audio commentary or using video production tools like after effects to give an overview Data tools or apps Provide information that users will find personally relevant and useful If appropriate allow users to share a key fact about themselves to boost reach and make it feel more personal A global dataset will be relevant to far more users and will get more shares Tools • Excel, Google Docs and fusion tables. • Sometimes MySQL and Access databases and Solr for interrogating larger data sets and used • RDF and SPARQL to begin looking at ways in which we can model events using linked data. • Developers will use their programming language of choice, whether that s A tio “ ipt, P tho o Pe l, to at h, pa se o ge e all pi k apart a dataset we might be working on. • Google a d Bi g Maps a d Google Ea th alo g ith Es i s A MAP fo exploring and visualising geographical data. • High charts javascript library for some data visualization • Adobe After Effects – motion graphics software • Carto DB • Data Wrapper bbc.co.uk/newsgraphics http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11333472 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10648909 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15975720 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15748696 The Migrants Files (2013) The Migrants Files is a project by a European consortium of journalists that aimed at precisely assessing the number of men, women and children that died as a result of EU Member States migration policies. Financed by Journalismfund.eu, the team of journalists started putting together all the data available on migrants casualties since 2000. Video Presentation: https://vimeo.com/97210043 Data: https://www.detective.io/detective/the-migrants-files/ • • • • What they found out: By aggregating sources together, they showed that the number of sourced dead and missing migrants is 50% higher than current estimates. Mortality rates between migration routes vary widely, from 2% in the Canaries to 6% near Malta and Lampedusa. EU Member States constantly close the routes with low mortality, pushing migrants towards the more dangerous ones. No EU Member State or EU institution has data on migrants death. For so e Me er “tates, dead igra ts are t igrati g a y ore, so hy are? , i the ords of a pu li offi ial. Whe it o es to talki g of li es sa ed a d se urity of igratio s, politician and border guards engage in shameless lies and whitewashing of their activities and programs, renaming surveillance and push-back activity into search and rescue operations. The Web as a data source More info: http://datajournalismhandbook.org/1.0/en/ge tting_data_4.html