The Guardian 

What is Data Journalism?

Data journalism is the use of key information sets, key data and/or key reference elements to inform a story.

Data lets you tell a story in a way that people watching and receiving it will understand it an enjoy it.

As long as the workings and evidence behind the story data journalists can be open and transparent about that, it makes the story so much stronger.

Data journalism is the recognition of the power of measurement in helping public conversations. It is a modern way of doing journalism. 

The Guardian are regraded as the pioneers of data journalism, they’ve had a strong history in data visualisation. 

There are a number of people across the organisation who work with data everyday, from the research department to journalists to interactive designers and people who visualise data for a living.

Data is very important these days because there are huge amounts of data and we have access to tools and the ability to analyse it, find patterns, structure it and reveal trends.

Part 2: History of Data Journalism at The Guardian

Data Journalism is brand new, it relies on the technology of the moment and didn’t exist before 2009. 

Journalists at The Guardian have been using data since the first issue of 1821.

The Manchester Guardian, 1821, has a front-page that consists entirely of averts, whilst the recent news content can be found on the inside of the paper.

An example of early data journalism in this edition is a table of data that lists every school in Manchester, with how many children in each school and the cost of girls and boys, this was 60 years before compulsory education.

Battle of Somme 

By 1947, the paper quality is better and the content is much more visual.

The Guardian Data blog in 2013 is digital, an example from this new age era is when the meteorites hit Russia, data was taken from the meteorological site and used to map out and plot meteorite locations over the world. This gives journalists and news companies the power of speed to create a data visualisation, something that people would envy many decades ago.

Part 3: Data journalism in action: the London Olympics

The alternative medals table

The Guardian worked with the Imperial College London to create a live tale that sorts through nations at the 2012 Olympics. 

You don’t want a designer to keep having to re-draw a new data visualisation each day.

The interactive designer had this visualisation running off a google spreadsheet, 

The numbers were updated everyday and those changed those graphics live as it happened.

The most important thing about data that is supplied is it has to be precise and accurate, there has to be a logical way for the coding to talk back to the visual.

By exploring through the data ad visuals yourself, you can make your own assumptions and stories and engage within that community aspect of data journalism.

Reflection

In this lecture pod, I learnt what data journalism is and why it is useful. I also found the history of The Guardian interesting and the use of history and data journalism used for the London Olympics and the Battle of the Somme useful and engaging.