Slides used in Level 3 undergrad Media Ethics course. Looks at data(base) journalism and how to be data journalist

1. Data Journalism MAC373/MED312 twitter/rob_jewitt robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk 1

2. Overview Intro Database Journalism and Computer Assisted Reporting Data Today : Visualisations and Interactivity How To Be A Data Journalist Ethics? 2

3. Recent hype Data Journalism Meta Journalism Visualisation Infographics Mash Ups 3

4. “Data-driven journalism is the future” “[Journalism’s] going to be about poring over data and equipping yourself with the tools to analyse it and picking out what's interesting. And keeping it in perspective, helping people out by really seeing where it all fits together, and what's going on in the country.” Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Internet, 2010 4

5. Origins 1950s Database Journalism Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR) Very expensive 5

6. 6 The Indianapolis Star Capital Journal circa 1961

7. New York Times News Room 7

8. CBS: 1952, Walter Cronkite Presidential election battle Eisenhower vs Stevenson Remington Rand UNIVAC Early vote returns analysis Predicted a landslide victory Contrary to popular opinion 8

9. Philip Meyer, Precision Journalism 1969: a journalist must make use of databases and surveys 2002: “a journalist has to be a database manager” 9

10. Other notable examples Clarence Jones, The Miami Herald, 1969 Criminal Justice systems David Burnham, The New York Times, 1972 Police crime rates Elliot Jaspin, The Providence Journal, 1986 School bus drivers and criminal records Bill Dedman, The Atlanta Journal, 1988 Pullitzer Prize for The Color of Money 10

11. Not Database – Just Data? 11

12. 12

13. 13

14. 14 Since 2004

15. 15

16. Adrian Holovaty (2005) Chicago Transport Authority map + Firefox plug-in + Google Maps = real time updates Chicago Police Department + Google Maps = real time police reports 16

17. Adrian Holovaty (2006) Now working for the Washington Post A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change Most material collected by journalists is: "structured information: the type of information that can be sliced-and-diced, in an automated fashion, by computers” 17

18. Adrian Holovaty (2006) Traditional journalism Articles as the finished product Data journalism Continually maintained and improved 18 Radical overhaul needed - Employing data - Making data available - Storing data - Coding data

19. Maps Everywhere! 19

20. 20

21. 21

22. Maps Everywhere! 2007 – Holovaty won $1.1 million from the Knight Foundation for Everyblock 2010 – SR2 Blog won Guardian.co.uk’s ‘most inspirational site’ accolade 22

23. 23

24. 24 link

25. 25 link

26. 26 Link

27. Interactivity Transport For London API Icelandic Ash Cloud and plane tracking AlJazeera’s coverage of War on Gaza using Ushahidi Guardian’s Twitter map of Middle East BBC Interactive on the Spending Review 27

28. Bella Hurrell, Specials Editor with BBC News Online(2011) Proximity of “journalists, designers and developers all working together, sitting alongside each other” 28

29. Bella Hurrell, Specials Editor with BBC News Online(2011) “We have found that proximity really important to the success of projects. Although we have done this for a while, increasingly other organisations are reorganising along these lines after coming to realise the benefits of breaking down silos and co-locating people with different skillsets can produce more innovative solutions at a faster pace.” 29

30. Bella Hurrell, Specials Editor with BBC News Online(2011) “As data visualisation has come into the zeitgeist, and we have started using it more regularly in our story-telling, journalists and designers on the specials team have become much more proficient at using basic spreadsheet applications like Excel or Google Docs” 30

31. Paul Bradshaw 31

32. Paul Bradshaw 32 “It represents the convergence of a number of fields which are significant in their own right - from investigative research and statistics to design and programming. The idea of combining those skills to tell important stories is powerful - but also intimidating. Who can do all that?”

33. Paul Bradshaw 33 “It represents the convergence of a number of fields which are significant in their own right - from investigative research and statistics to design and programming. The idea of combining those skills to tell important stories is powerful - but also intimidating. Who can do all that?” “The reality is that almost no one is doing all of that, but there are enough different parts of the puzzle for people to easily get involved in, and go from there”

34. 34

35. Dealing with Data (Bradshaw, 2010) 4 crucial aspects Finding data Interrogating data Visualizing data Mashing data 35

36. Link

37. 37

38. 38

39. 39

40. New Tools of the Trade? ManyEyes – data visualisation tool Yahoo! Pipes – composition tool to mash-up data Google Fusion Tables – visualise data on maps, timelines, etc Processing – tool for creating images & interactions Wordle – generate word clouds from bulky text ScraperWiki – transforms info from webpages into data Google Refine (Freebase)– makes messy data clean! 40

41. 41

42. Summary Is this journalism? Journalism educators doing students a disservice? Journalists replaced by programmers? Wikileaks: no journalist's required? 42

43. Links and further reading http://www.delicious.com/rob_jewitt/med312+datajournalism 43

44. 44 Images Knight Foundation, 2008, Sir Tim Berners-Lee talking about the Web at the Newseum Bill on Capitol Hill, 2007, The Rim and the Slot Marion Doss, 2008, Capital Journalism News Room 16 October 1961 Igorschwarzmann, 2010, NYT News Room Mkandlez, 2009, The Billion Pound O Gram BitBoy, 2006, The Elephant in the Room Ravages, 2008, Links