Keynote Tbilisi November 2013

1. How news organizations are using
data to tell stories
Peter Verweij
D3-Media
Tbilisi November 2013

2. Is data journalism really the new kid
on the block?
1854 London Dr Snow Cholera
map
1967 Detroit Riots Ph Meyer
using IBM mainframe for survey

3. Data Journalism is at least 50 years old
• But known under different names
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Precision Journalism(Meyer)
Analytical Journalism (Johnson)
Computer Assisted Research and Reporting(IRE/Nicar)
Data Journalism
• Common denominator: use the tools of
science to improve quality of reporting

4. Riots in The UK 2011 by
The Guardian
C:UserspeterDesktophdcDatajournalists are the new punks_ Simon
Rogers at
TEDxPantheonSorbonne.mp4
http://www.theguardian.com/news/da
tablog/interactive/2011/aug/16/riotspoverty-map
Data speaking truth to power: refuting
claim PM Cameron about poverty
Free software
Easy to use

5. Traffic accidents
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From Database: 2000 accidents
Top ten
Dangerous junctions
Map is the story
Simple spreadsheet
Geo coding and mapping
Story telling
Convergence

6. Final Scores Elementary
schools
Online version by RTL:
http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/speci
al/publicatie-cito-scores-kijk-hoejouw-school-scoort
Hardcopy by NRC: different angle
Based on excel
Mapping and simple grapics
Scraping data from RTL
Adding other data

7. Crime mapping
Here is what the LA Times is doing
http://maps.latimes.com/crime/
Typical American, because of public
records
Not real story telling or reporting just
info

8. Sovereign Ratings
Guardian published the data:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/da
tablog/2010/apr/30/credit-ratingscountry-fitch-moodysstandard?INTCMP=SRCH
Visualization of the data with Tableau
Worksheet could published embedded

9. Members of the
Parliament
NRC representation of the members
by age, gender, education, address/city
Scraping data
Simple graphics

10. Sanitation at elementary
schools and drop out in
Kibera Nairobi Kenya
http://www.icfj.org/news/data%E2%80%9Cboot-camp%E2%80%9Dhelps-kenyan-reporter-expose-schoolsanitation-woes
Simple data collection
Turning into multi media story telling

11. Social network Analysis
Structuring the public debates:
Twitter network 500 SA journalists
http://memeburn.com/2012/07/howto-make-your-journalistic-twitternetwork-rock-a-case-study/
More advanced
Steep learning curve
New angle to decision making and
power distribution

12. Conclusions 1
Journalism is not only text but also numbers;
Attention to numeracy; how to work with
numbers;
A little statistics is basic knowledge, for
example:
Robert Niles; doing spreadsheets without any
idea about statistics does not work.
http://www.robertniles.com/stats/
Knowledge about software:
excel, scraping, mapping ,visualizing
, embedded links
But software change fast: learn yourself new
software
Data Journalism is team work

13. Conclusions 2
High end: R project or SPSS for detailed
statistics;
Hire a specialist from the university for
advanced statistics
For difficult scraping and hacking a database:
hire a coder from your IT department that is
hosting the on line or employ him/her in the
newsroom

14. How to get started?
- start with interesting colleagues in data
journalism
- start with training the basic skills
- start small
- come up with a feasible story idea and
available data
- create a budget
- create a team division of labor
- have back up in case you get stuck
- involve the editor and management
- report step by step and decide whether to
continue or not
- write a plan based on a story idea: what is
your news/expected outcome; think about
how to publish; convergence hard copy and
online.

15. THANK YOU VERY MUCH
•E-mail: peter@d3-media.nl
•Twitter: peter_verweij
•Blog: http://d3-media.blogspot.nl/