Mashups. Michelle Minkoff » Self-teaching data and programming skills. So, you think data journalism and programming are some valuable skills you’d like to learn.
Unfortunately, your school doesn’t offer this as a track, or maybe you’re not even in school anymore. You know people will help you, and you think it all seems cool, but it can be difficult knowing just where to start. I know I felt forced to stand still for too many months in terms of my programming skills — I was frozen by an overwhelming feeling. Again, it shouldn’t be this hard to just figure out how to get started. This past week, I received a few emails asking me to address this issue. Read on for an adaptation of my marathon-length email — you really don’t want to suffer through the entire piece as it was originally written at an ungodly hour, I promise. Hello, fellow journalist seeking to conquer data and programming!
Get familiar with Excel and Access, hopefully you’re using some data in your reporting already. Remember that you are not alone. And practice. Data journalism pt1: Finding data (draft – comments invited) The following is a draft from a book about online journalism that I’ve been working on.
I’d really appreciate any additions or comments you can make – particularly around sources of data and legal considerations The first stage in data journalism is sourcing the data itself. Often you will be seeking out data based on a particular question or hypothesis (for a good guide to forming a journalistic hypothesis see Mark Hunter’s free ebook Story-Based Inquiry (2010)). On other occasions, it may be that the release or discovery of data itself kicks off your investigation. There are a range of sources available to the data journalist, both online and offline, public and hidden. National and local government;bodies that monitor organisations (such as regulators or consumer bodies);scientific and academic institutions;health organisations;charities and pressure groups;business;and the media itself.
Private companies and charities Regulators, researchers and the media. Data: Information is power. Is data journalism?
If you need to ask yourself the question then you are about to miss out on an information bonanza. Starting this week, Downing Street is to make a series of announcements that could give journalists access to public data from all corners of local and national government, and revolutionise the way they work. Crime, health, education, the economy: every aspect of our lives is measured by the government, which has become very good at collecting data.
But, traditionally, that data has been made as inaccessible as possible. Published on PDFs rather than spreadsheets; jargonised so much as to make it meaningless; aggregated into such big geographical areas that it tells us nothing about where we live. Freeing up government data formed a key part of the three main parties' manifestos and now the coalition government has pledged some major launches, the first of which we could see in the next few days. Curators and explainers The impact on journalism is expected to be great.