The key to getting to grips with data journalism is remembering it is just like all other types of journalism…
What is the story?
In data journalism, the story isn’t really about the numbers or the data (because most people think numbers are boring), but what the numbers tell you about the world or people or wider issues.
Sometimes you start with a dataset and see if there are any stories you can find from analysing and interpreting that data. Sometimes you have a question or a newsworthy topic in mind that you want to find data to try and understand better or see if a hunch is right.
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With data journalism, making sure you can answer some variations on the basic questions of news journalism is likely to be a good place to start:
Who (or rather what) is the data about? – What topics does it cover, what issues does it relate to, what information is included and what isn’t (do you need to find other datasets or people to fill in the gaps)?
What happened? – What does the dataset appear to show? How do numbers in it vary or how do they compare to other datasets (more in-depth ways of answering this question are covered in the rest of the chapter).
When does the data cover? – Is it up to date, the most recent available or quite old? Have things changed since it was published that will make it less useful (most pre-2020 data feels very out of date, even if the usual publishing schedule would have been fine in previous years)? Have you got all the available data for all years to try to build a more comprehensive timeline?
Where does the data cover? – What geography is included? Is it national, regional, does it have local breakdowns? Is it a specific geography for this type of data, can you combine it with other datasets?
How did it happen? – Or at least how was the data put together and by who, and what limitations could that mean for interpreting the data?
Why? – There are a couple of why questions you may want to answer.
Why is this data interesting to people? Up to date, well sourced data that shows things are changing or things are better or worse depending on where you live can be interesting, in that it is telling people things they didn’t know before. It can also give them a clearer idea of what’s going on (or at least what was happening recently). It may also back up things people have said about a topic with more information.
It may also help suggest why something is happening. Data journalism usually uses fairly basic analysis that can, at best, show correlations, rather than cause and effect. It can spot patterns, trends and outliers that show what is happening, and combined with other information or expert opinion may suggest why as well.
Want more? Buy Getting Started with Data Journalism, a beginners and beyond guide to finding, cleaning analysing and visualising data in any size newsroom.
Photo by Rhys Kentish on Unsplash
