Carol Perruso

Journalism Librarian

Feb. 12, 2013

DATA-DRIVEN JOURNALISM: THE BASICS

WHAT IS DATA-DRIVE JOURNALISM?

• "Data-driven journalism enables reporters to tell untold stories, find new angles or complete stories via a workflow of finding, processing and presenting significant amounts of data….”

• Henk van Ess, Dutch reporter

ANOTHER WAY OF LOOKING AT IT

FIRST: DATA OR STORY IDEA?

• “Data journalism begins in one of two ways: either you have a question that needs data, or a dataset that needs questioning.” –Paul Bradshaw

WHAT’S INVOLVED?

• Data has to be found, which may involve computer research skills or good old reporting or FOI requests.

• Reporter has to get to know the data.

• Analysis: What story does the data tell?

• Make data accessible/understandable by readers: Story/graphics

FINDING THE DATA• Bradshaw outlines the ways you might get data. They might be:

• Supplied by an organization (“how long until we see ‘data releases’ alongside press releases?”)

• “Found through using advanced search techniques to plough into the depths of government websites”

• “Compiled by scraping databases hidden behind online forms or pages of results” using specialized tools.

• Converted from documents into a form that can be analyzed

• Pulled from APIs (application programming interfaces)

• Collected by the reporter

GETTING TO KNOW THE DATA• CLEAN IT UP:

• Removing human error:

• Removing duplicate entries;

• Deleting blanks

• Converting descriptions to a uniform format/language (e.g. BBC or B.B.C or British Broadcasting Corporation)

• Converting the data into a format that is consistent with other data you are using.

• TOOLS: Find and Replace in Excel or Google Refine

INTERVIEW THE DATA

• Do you speak the same language?

• Where do you come from?

• Who created you?

• How were you gathered?

• What are your goals?

• Do they match yours?

ANALYSIS: SOME EXAMPLES

• Sort by scale: highest to lowest e.g. highest to lowest paid public employees

• Adding it up: e.g. Total amount of salaries paid to players of a professional baseball team

• Average: Average pay for an employee in a certain job category

• Geographical groupings and distribution

TOOLS: WHAT ARE REPORTERS USING?• Excel• Google Fusion• SPSS• Access • Google Refine• Social Explorer www.socialexplorer.com • Python• Tableau Public

VISUALIZATION: EXAMPLES

• New York Times: The 2012 Budget, How $3.7 trillion is spent.

• Immigration trends: New York Times

• Netflix rental patterns: New York Times

• Pay patterns: Sacramento Bee

• Gas prices: Los Angeles Times

DATA TO PLAY WITH

• Earthquake data

• Earthquakes

• Survey on gun ownership vs. gun control

• Rights to own guns survey