Presentation from launch event for this new book, highlighting some of the key takeaways and lessons from the volume. You can buy the book via publisher Abramis: http://www.arimapublishing.co.uk/bookshopuk/bookinfo/book_184549663?bs=uk and on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1lwZGYJ
4. 1. Greater use of the power of data
Across all walks of life – from politics to sport
5. 2. Not as new as you might think…
Statistical chart
invented by
Florence
Nightingale to
show the
predominance of
disease as a cause
of mortality in the
British Army
during the
Crimean War.
(April 1854 to March
1855 and April 1855 to
March 1856)
Been around for over 150 years...
6. You know nothing something John Snow
“How often does a map change the
world? In 1854, one produced by
Doctor John Snow, altered it forever.
In the world of the 1850s, cholera
was believed to be spread by miasma
in the air, germs were not yet
understood and the sudden and
serious outbreak of cholera in
London's Soho was a mystery.
So Snow did something data
journalists often do now: he mapped
the cases.“
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog
/2013/mar/15/john-snow-cholera-map
The other John Snow…
7. 3. Huge breadth and range
Covering all genres and using many different comms styles
8. 4. Unprecedentedly large data sets
391,000 records
Wikileaks' Iraq release
UK: 170 million +
records which can be
explored for free
Creating opportunities and challenges
9. 5. Global Practice
Including:
• Skills
• Format of public data
• Up to date data
• Newsroom integration
Data Journalists often face many of the same issues
11. 1. Analysis of news coverage
2015 UK General Election
• Upwards of 170,000 articles
in traditional media and over
a million tweets analyzed.
• 7,000 /30,000 articles p/w.
• Every tweet published by
3,290 political actors and
influencers.
• c.25,000 daily tweets and
over 170,000 tweets p/w.
• Weekly analysis.
12. 2. Conflicts of interest
• Analysis of Local Government
Pension Fund investment data.
• 99 FOI requests.
• Highlighted ethical dilemmas.
• Councils seeking to make
returns while also being arbiters
on planning proposals in the
nascent fracking industry.
13. 3. Perception vs Reality
• Matteo Moretti and colleagues
used data journalism to tackle
Chinese migrant xenophobia in
the Italian city of Bolzano.
• The series about the "People's
Republic of Bolzano” won Data
Visualisation of the Year (Small
Newsroom), at the Data
Journalism Awards 2015 run by
Global Editors Network.
14. 4. How US Intelligence budget is spent
• Leaked by Edward Snowden, published by The Washington Post Aug 13.
• US government has annually released its overall level of intelligence
spending since 2007.
• But ‘it has not divulged how it uses the money or how it performs
against the goals set by the president and Congress.’
Mirko Lorenz
@mirkolorenz
Storyteller, innovator | co-founder/project manager of @datawrapper - A tool to create charts and maps for the web in minutes, not hours. Used in leading newsrooms around the world. | trainer for#ddj | part of @dw_innovation
https://twitter.com/mirkolorenz/status/605740184345452545
Mayor O’Malley wanted to use this approach to clean up Baltimore, and but in a much broader capacity
Mayor O’Malley wanted to use this approach to clean up Baltimore, but in a much broader capacity. He was focused on reducing crime, but he also wanted to impact and improve the city as a whole. He wanted the suburbanites who had abandoned their city to return. He wanted a vibrant downtown full of safe and happy visitors. He wanted all of Baltimore’s children to have the best education, and he wanted a cleaner, more efficient city.
As a result, he led a team to create his version of CompStat—called CitiStat. It was a game-changer. The shift to a data-driven approach not only impacted crime, but also provided a data-based decision-making platform for all city agencies. It gave birth to services that benefited citizens, like 311 non-emergency issue reporting and a forty-eight-hour pothole response guarantee.
http://beyondtransparency.org/chapters/part-4/why-data-must-drive-decisions-in-government/
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--_9wZDRh2_Q/UhtmILIOOKI/AAAAAAAALKA/NAqZiG0wx9o/s1600/moneyball.jpg
One of the things I like about the book is that it shows the huge range of topics, approaches and mentalities that congregate in data journalism. And that so often this is a cross-disciplinary field.
Perhaps one of the reasons why it has taken off is due to the Open Data movement. And the volume of data we now have access to.
Founded by former journalist Chris Taggart, OpenCorporates.com have an open database of more than 93 million companies in the world, which is continually being updated and added to.
Book has examples from all around the world including India, Brazil and Ireland as well as the US and UK.
https://horseradish.s3.amazonaws.com/CACHE/images/photos/74/b0/724750804c90/binary-368715_1280-800.jpg
Many of which involve journalism's traditional investigative role and watchdog responsibilities
As the US enters an election year this example from the UK may be of particular interest.
The Media Standards Trust....
And what of fracking, which has seen a huge boom across the States and which may be coming soon to the UK? A project by Kingston University Professor Jan Goodey and his students...
Featured in UK national the Independent. Also showed conflicts around smoking; habit UK local authorities are receiving money to help prevent, yet a number of them are also investiting in tobacco companies.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1280925/images/o-FRACKING-facebook.jpg
Immigration is a global issue and it’s a story applicable to many communities around the world and a great example of an approach that small newsrooms can potentially emulate.
http://assets.fontsinuse.com/static/use-media-items/30/29132/full-1532x1596/5621549a/Screen%20Shot%202015-05-13%20at%2021-05-14.png?resolution=0
https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/515841722_150x84.jpg
Journalists have always “followed the money” and data journalism today is part of this history. One which often involves a lot of shoe leather.
He asked one of his reporters, Douglas Howard, a former postal clerk, to use a U.S. Post Office book of mail routes to calculate the shortest path from each congressman's district to the Capitol, and compared those distances with each congressman's mileage reimbursements.
Among the accused stood Abraham Lincoln, in his only term as congressman. Lincoln's travel from faraway Springfield, Illinois, made him the recipient of some $677 in excess mileage — more than $18,700 today — among the House's worst. Beside Lincoln, Greeley's findings included a list of historical legends, including both of Lincoln's vice presidents — Hannibal Hamlin, who took only an extra $64.80 to go between Washington and Maine, and Andrew Johnson, who got $122.40 extra to get to the Capitol and back from Tennessee. Interestingly he placed the blame on the law, not the politicians. So things do change after all!
Alongside case studies, the book's contributors also include a number of recommendations for embedding data journalism; and how/when to use it.
https://www3.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/ebu/files/events/News/MIS%20Survey%20Image%20cropped%20for%20web.jpg
Data on its own tells us nothing – viz Everyblock or data portals. Needs context. Evaluation. Often delivered working in teams to understand, produce and show the story.
Only going to grow due to open data movement, tools to use and in an era where sources can go directly to the public, often the true way to sniff out a story.
The UK government published its draft investigatory powers bill earlier this month, which potentially gives police and security services new surveillance powers. The bill promoted some criticism from media lawyers highlighting how it could be used to spy on journalists and their source.But it's not just UK-based journalists who should be aware of the tools and techniques they can use to protect themselves and their sources from surveillance, especially if they are working on investigative projects and speaking to whistle-blowers.It’s against this backdrop that a chapter on information security by is especially interesting.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02283/data-security_2283310b.jpg
Back in 2001 when I started working for BBC Online, it was in an area of the Corporation known as New Media. Now it’s just media. The same will happen with journalism.
Stories are still king. Data is simply the means to help tell the story.
http://www.ilsensodismillaperlarete.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Digi-Journalist-tools-800x365.jpg