Visualizing news is considered an apt way to deal with two challenges of modern journalism: disclosing big data and presenting complex information in a way that is easily to comprehend. Newsrooms try their hand at it, and are figuring out how to organize production of information visualizations effectively. This study delves into reported challenges for the production of news visualizations and states, in accordance with executed case studies, that the introduction of information visualization in the media asks for a convergence of journalistic and visual thinking skills, a more iterative news production process and a revised view on the function of news per se.

1. V I S U A L I Z I N G N E W S
M A K E I T W O R K
G e r a r d S m i t , Y a e l d e H a a n & L a u r a B u i j s

2. FRONTPAGES INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPERS
AUGUST 30

3. FRONTPAGES INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPERS
AUGUST 30

4. AND ONLINE …

5. RQ
What are the
decisive factors
that make news
visualizations
work for the
different people
involved?

6. METHOD
Literature study
Expert interviews
Case studies

7. RESULTS
Individual
• skills
Groups
• mindset
Organization
• structure

8. SKILLS
writing
designing
programming
data mining

9. MINDSET
frustrating hierarchy
no common language
lack of common ground

10. STRUCTURE
pace
linearity
distance
support

11. CONCLUSION
story
visualtext
skills
mind
set
s t r u c t u r e

12. THANK YOU
G e r a r d S m i t , Ya e l d e H a a n & L a u r a B u i j s
University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, the Netherlands
gerard.smit@hu.nl