Post on 15-May-2015
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Big Data & JournalismMAC281
twitter/rob_jewitt
robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk
2009 #iranelectionImage: Gilad Lotan, ReTweet Revolution
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An
ato
my o
f a tw
eet
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Overview
Intro
Database Journalism and Computer Assisted Reporting
Data Today : Visualisations and Interactivity
How To Be A Data Journalist
Ethics?
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Recent hype
Data Journalism
Meta Journalism
Visualisation
Infographics
Mash Ups
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Adam Westbrook
“I think data-driven journalism is one of the big potential growth areas in the future of journalism. A lot of the forward-thinking discussion about the future of news focuses on the ‘glamorous’ possibilities, like video journalism and interactivity, but I often see data journalism being ignored.
In fact, I believe it is journalism in its truest essence: uncovering and mining through information the public do not have enough time to do themselves, interrogating it, and making sense of it before sharing it with the audience. If more journalists did this (rather than relying on ‘data’ from press releases) we would be a far more enlightened public.
Source link
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Adam Westbrook
My message to the next generation of journalists - or any journalist looking for a new niche or direction - would be to learn the skills and tools of data interrogation. It’s not glamorous, but it’s a skill not many journalists have, and one which will give one an edge in the market.”
Source link
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Brian Storm
One of our big goals in the storytelling process is to humanize the statistics. It’s hard for people to care about numbers, especially large numbers. How do you get your head around the death of 800,000 people in the Rwandan genocide? I think if you meet the individuals - see and hear the stories of the survivors - you can gain a better insight into the tragedy.
Source link
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“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 Web, 2010
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Origins
1950s
Database Journalism
Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR)
Very expensive
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The Indianapolis Star
Capital Journal circa 1961
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New
York Tim
es N
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oom
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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
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Philip Meyer, Precision Journalism
1969: a journalist must make use of databases and surveys
2002: “a journalist has to be a database manager”
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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
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Not Database – Just Data?
Since 2004
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Adrian Holovaty (2005)
Chicago Transport Authority map + Firefox plug-in + Google Maps = real time updates
Chicago Police Department + Google Maps = real time police reports
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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”
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Adrian Holovaty (2006)
Traditional journalism
Articles as the finished product
Data journalism
Continually maintained and improved
Radical overhaul needed- Employing data- Making data available- Storing data- Coding data
=✓
=✗
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Maps Everywhere!
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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
link
link
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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
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Bella Hurrell, Specials Editor with BBC News Online (2011)
Proximity of “journalists, designers and developers all working together, sitting alongside each other”
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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.”
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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”
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Paul Bradshaw
“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?”
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Paul Bradshaw
“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”
Dealing with Data (Bradshaw, 2010)
4 crucial aspects
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1. Finding data
2. Interrogating data
3. Visualizing data
4. Mashing data
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Data visualisation vs data journalism
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New Tools of the Trade?
Analysis
Excel or Calc sort your data
Google Refine clean your dirty data
Yahoo Pipes Composition mash-up tool
ScraperWiki transforms info from webpages
into data
R Process and manipulate data
Visualisation
Google Fusion Tables visualise data on maps,
timelines, etc
Tableau Public Visualise and share
IBM’s Many Eyes data visualisation tool
Processing create images & interactives
Wordle generate word clouds from
bulky text
Summary
Is this journalism?
Journalism educators doing students a disservice?
Journalists replaced by programmers?
Wikileaks: no journalist's required?
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Links and further reading
Simon Rogers (2013) Facts are Sacred, London: Faber & Faber
http://www.delicious.com/rob_jewitt/med312+datajournalism
http://www.delicious.com/smfrogers
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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
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Issues
To what extent is the traditional craft of storytelling being challenged by the emergence of big data?
What kind of problems are manifest by the deluge of large data sets (eg MPs expenses, Wikileaks Iraq war logs, US cables, etc)?
Can the use or release of big data sets have ethical implications?