Data journalism

City University Magazine MA3 March 2011

Data matters

You may not think data plays a massive role in journalism, but it does. From the Wikileaks files, to financial, political journalism - and even consumer journalism too - data helps you tell stories.

Some things are too big for you to explain in words alone

Two sides to this:

1. Getting the data and2. Visualising it (that’s what we do next time)

But it’s not about maths

It’s about stories

http://www.peteraldhous.com/earthquakes.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/jul/26/ied-afghanistan-war-logs

“The new data techniques used in this Guardian investigation begin to tackle the problem: using an automated script coded by ScraperWiki, all the separate all-party register entries are pulled into one document, so the data can be analysed to give a fuller picture.”

“the key thing here is to learn how to solve your own problems. Asking a tutor should be your last resort - they will not be there for the

rest of your life!

Task 1: Use advanced search techniques to find data for a journalistic question

Identify a question you have - or a set of data that may be useful. Failing that, have a look at GetTheData.org and try to answer one of the questions there.

Use Google's Advanced Search facility to narrow down your search. Try the following:Limit by filetype:

• filetype:xls will restrict results to Excel spreadsheets; • filetype:csv to 'comma separated values' spreadsheets; • filetype:doc to Word documents - often used for internal documents• filetype:pdf to PDFs - often used for official reports• filetype:ppt for PowerPoint files - used for internal and external presentations

Limit by domain:

• site:gov.uk will restrict results to UK government websites • .ac.uk to UK educational establishments (not all of them reputable) - the US equivalent is

.edu• .org.uk to (mostly) nonprofit organisations - again, this is not guaranteed. You can also

try .org although this will include results from other countries.• .mod.uk - the Ministry of Defence• .nhs.uk - NHS sites• .dh.gov.uk - Department of Health• .police.uk - police websites, including British Transport Police, the Met and others

Limit by website:• site:bolton.gov.uk will further limit results to just one website, rather than all local

authority websites.• Likewise site:city.ac.uk would only return results from City University's website

You can limit your search further by using quotation marks so that only pages containing the exact phrase are returned, e.g. "annual report"

You can also expand it by using 'Boolean' operators like OR, e.g. "site:gov.uk OR site:police.uk"Look up 'Boolean operators' to find out other tricks

Combine the above to limit your results - e.g. "deaths in police custody filetype:xls site:gov.uk"Also try to search for 'database' - the contents of databases are 'invisible' to Google so you're looking for the page that allows you to search it.

Try other 'operators' such as + before a search term to ensure it is in the pages themselves, e.g. +custodyphrases in quotes, e.g. "deaths in custody"The * wildcard, e.g. "deaths in * custody"The ~ operator for synonyms, e.g. ~deaths

Googled:

filetype:csv music industry

MAKE SENSE of the data

• What does it show?• Where is it from?• Are you sure?• What story can you draw from it?• How would you visualise it?

It’s all about pivot tables!

Made with Many Eyes

Links

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/01/data-journalism-how-to-guide

• http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2010/04/21/data-journalism-pt1-finding-data-draft-comments-invited/

• http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2008/07/16/how-to-create-basic-mashups-with-yahoo-pipes/

• http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2011/learning-how-to-visualize/