Synopses & Reviews
When you combine the sheer scale and range of digital information now available with a journalists "nose for news" and her ability to tell a compelling story, a new world of possibility opens up. With The Data Journalism Handbook, youll explore the potential, limits, and applied uses of this new and fascinating field.
This valuable handbook has attracted scores of contributors since the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation launched the project at MozFest 2011. Through a collection of tips and techniques from leading journalists, professors, software developers, and data analysts, youll learn how data can be either the source of data journalism or a tool with which the story is told—or both.
- Examine the use of data journalism at the BBC, the Chicago Tribune, the Guardian, and other news organizations
- Explore in-depth case studies on elections, riots, school performance, and corruption
- Learn how to find data from the Web, through freedom of information laws, and by "crowd sourcing"
- Extract information from raw data with tips for working with numbers and statistics and using data visualization
- Deliver data through infographics, news apps, open data platforms, and download links
Synopsis
This collaborative book coordinated by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation aims to answer questions like: Where can I find data? How can I request data? What tools can I use? How can I find stories in data? How can I make data journalism sustainable? It had a very successful start at the Mozilla Festival in London in November 2011 with fifty contributors, including data journalists and professors from the New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Medill School of Journalism, and Cronkite School of Journalism. Additional contributors now include leading developers, analysts, FOI experts, and other practitioners from places like the BBC, City University London, Scraperwiki, Zeit Online, and many others. The project has received coverage in the New York Times, Liberation, Tech Crunch, World Editors Forum, and other major publications.
Synopsis
In the age of big data, the bond between data and journalism is growing stronger. Journalists attempting to create a narrative from data are looking to provide context, clarity, and perhaps find truth in the ever expanding amount of digital content.
But how do you locate data on a given topic? What tools do you need to process data, and which techniques are best for digging out the stories hidden within? You can find the answers to these and many other questions in The Data Journalism Handbook, a collaborative resource coordinated by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation.
With contributions from data journalists and professors from the New York Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, Medill School of Journalism, and Cronkite School of Journalism, this handbook provides a valuable collection of tips and techniques. Since the books introduction at the Mozilla Festival in London in the fall of 2011, many others have contributed material, including leading software developers, data analysts, and FOI experts.
About the Author
Jonathan Gray is Head of Community and Culture at the Open Knowledge Foundation (okfn.org), an award winning not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting open data, open content and the public domain in a wide variety of different fields. He founded several data journalism projects at the OKFN, including OpenSpending.org, which maps public spending around the world, and Europe's Energy, which puts EU energy targets into context. He is doing research in philosophy and the history of ideas at Royal Holloway, University of London. More about him can be found at jonathangray.org.
Lucy Chambers is a Community Coordinator at the Open KnowledgeFoundation. She works on the OKFN's OpenSpending.org project andSpending Stories, a Knight News Challenge Winner 2011 - helpingjournalists build context around and fact check spending data. Shealso coordinates the data-driven-journalism activities of theFoundation, running training sessions for journalists on how to find,work with and present data.
Liliana Bounegru is project manager on Data Journalism at the European Journalism Centre (in Maastricht) and editor of DataDrivenJournalism.net, a collection of useful resources for those who want to get started with data journalism. She is a Research MA candidate in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
Table of Contents
Preface; For the Great Unnamed; Contributors; What This Book Is (And What It Isn't); Conventions Used in This Book; Safari® Books Online; How to Contact Us; Chapter 1: Introduction; 1.1 What Is Data Journalism?; 1.2 Why Journalists Should Use Data; 1.3 Why Is Data Journalism Important?; 1.4 Some Favorite Examples; 1.5 Data Journalism in Perspective; Chapter 2: In The Newsroom; 2.1 The ABC's Data Journalism Play; 2.2 Data Journalism at the BBC; 2.3 How the News Apps Team at the Chicago Tribune Works; 2.4 Behind the Scenes at the Guardian Datablog; 2.5 Data Journalism at the Zeit Online; 2.6 How to Hire a Hacker; 2.7 Harnessing External Expertise Through Hackathons; 2.8 Following the Money: Data Journalism and Cross-Border Collaboration; 2.9 Our Stories Come As Code; 2.10 Kaas and Mulvad: Semi-Finished Content for Stakeholder Groups; 2.11 Business Models for Data Journalism; Chapter 3: Case Studies; 3.1 The Opportunity Gap; 3.2 A Nine Month Investigation into European Structural Funds; 3.3 The Eurozone Meltdown; 3.4 Covering the Public Purse with OpenSpending.org; 3.5 Finnish Parliamentary Elections and Campaign Funding; 3.6 Electoral Hack in Realtime (Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires); 3.7 Data in the News: WikiLeaks; 3.8 Mapa76 Hackathon; 3.9 The Guardian Datablog's Coverage of the UK Riots; 3.10 Illinois School Report Cards; 3.11 Hospital Billing; 3.12 Care Home Crisis; 3.13 The Tell-All Telephone; 3.14 Which Car Model? MOT Failure Rates; 3.15 Bus Subsidies in Argentina; 3.16 Citizen Data Reporters; 3.17 The Big Board for Election Results; 3.18 Crowdsourcing the Price of Water; Chapter 4: Getting Data; 4.1 A Five Minute Field Guide; 4.2 Your Right to Data; 4.3 Wobbing Works. Use It!; 4.4 Getting Data from the Web; 4.5 The Web as a Data Source; 4.6 Crowdsourcing Data at the Guardian Datablog; 4.7 How the Datablog Used Crowdsourcing to Cover Olympic Ticketing; 4.8 Using and Sharing Data: the Black Letter, the Fine Print, and Reality; Chapter 5: Understanding Data; 5.1 Become Data Literate in Three Simple Steps; 5.2 Tips for Working with Numbers in the News; 5.3 Basic Steps in Working with Data; 5.4 The £32 Loaf of Bread; 5.5 Start With the Data, Finish With a Story; 5.6 Data Stories; 5.7 Data Journalists Discuss Their Tools of Choice; 5.8 Using Data Visualization to Find Insights in Data; Chapter 6: Delivering Data; 6.1 Presenting Data to the Public; 6.2 How to Build a News App; 6.3 News Apps at ProPublica; 6.4 Visualization as the Workhorse of Data Journalism; 6.5 Using Visualizations to Tell Stories; 6.6 Different Charts Tell Different Tales; 6.7 Data Visualization DIY: Our Top Tools; 6.8 How We Serve Data at Verdens Gang; 6.9 Public Data Goes Social; 6.10 Engaging People Around Your Data; Colophon;