Journalism.co.uk Editors' Blog » Data journalism

David McCandless: Odds of dying from blogging?

Laura Oliver — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:59:30 +0000

It’s 35,000,000 to 1, according to set of graphics from InformationIsBeautiful.net (hat tip to @fionacullinan).

While the blogging comparison might be slightly irreverent (and viewed alongside the very real threat to bloggers in countries with limited press freedom), Google is cited as the source for this stat and the whole set gives some interesting ideas for visualising data.

Full graphics at this link…

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#DataJourn: Royal Mail cracks down on unofficial postcode database

Judith Townend — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:16:39 +0000

A campaign to release UK postcode data that is currently the commercial preserve of the Royal Mail (prices at this link) has been gathering pace for a while. And not so long ago in July, someone uploaded a set to Wikileaks.

How useful was this, some wondered: the Guardian’s Charles Arthur, for example.

In an era of grassroots, crowd-sourced accountability journalism, this could be a powerful tool for journalists and online developers when creating geo-data based applications and investigations.

But the unofficial release made this a little hard to assess. After all, the data goes out of date very fast, so unless someone kept leaking it, it wouldn’t be all that helpful. Furthermore it would be in defiance of the Royal Mail’s copyright, so would be legally risky to use.

At the forefront of the ‘Free Our Postcodes’ campaign is Earnest Marples, the site named after the British postmaster general who introduced the postcode. Marples is otherwise known as Harry Metcalfe and Richard Pope, who – without disclosing their source – opened an API which could power sites such as PlanningAlerts.com and Jobcentre Pro Plus.

“We’re doing the same as everyone’s being doing for years, but just being open about it,” they said at the time of launch earlier this year.

But now they have closed the service. Last week they received cease and desist letters from the Royal Mail demanding that they stop publishing information from the database (see letters on their blog).

“We are not in a position to mount an effective legal challenge against the Royal Mail’s demands and therefore have closed the ErnestMarples.com API, effective immediately,” Harry Metcalfe told Journalism.co.uk.

“We’re very disappointed that Royal Mail have chosen to take this course. The service was supporting numerous socially useful applications such as Healthwhere, JobcentreProPlus.com and PlanningAlerts.com. We very much hope that the Royal Mail will work with us to find a solution that allows us to continue to operate.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said: “We have not asked anyone to close down a website. We have simply asked a third party to stop allowing unauthorised access to Royal Mail data, in contravention of our intellectual property rights.”

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Signals intelligence journalism: using public information websites to source stories

Judith Townend — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:56:21 +0000

Useful information is more widely and easily available than ever and the increasing amount of online data released by the government and others can help improve the originality of journalists’ work.

Look to VentnorBlog – the hyperlocal online effort based in the Isle of Wight which Journalism.co.uk commended during the Vestas protest coverage – for some inspiration.

[For those unfamiliar with the story, locals had been protesting against the closure of the wind turbine factory in front of national, local and hyperlocal media. Despite a long and well-publicised campaign in August 2009, Danish company Vestas has now pulled out of manufacturing on the Isle of Wight but protests and attacks by critics in the press continue. A national day of action to support redundant Vestas workers has been planned for Thursday, September 17.]

Last week, using the Area Ship Traffic Website, AIS, VB was able to report where two barges held by an agent – NEG Micron Rotors – who used to own the Vestas’ factory were due to head. They would be used to move the blades from the factory, which are so huge that they can only travel away on the water on special vessels.

The correspondent who tipped off VentnorBlog knew that the wind turbine blades can only be transferred from the riverside to barge when it is high tide and across a public footpath so, using the information on the AIS site, concluded that the barges would be moved in a specific time slot.

As a result Vestas protesters asked supporters to join them at the Marine Gate on the River Medina. Of course VentnorBlog got down there to take some pictures.

Now let’s take that one step further: how can journalists tap into this kind of publicly available data to scoop stories?

Tony Hirst, Open University academic, Isle of Wight resident and prolific data masher, shared some thoughts with Journalism.co.uk. He said that we should look to signals intelligence for further inspiration: the interception and analysis of ’signals’ emitted by whoever you are surveying. As military historians would be the first to tell you, they can be a very rich source of intelligence about others’ actions and intentions, he explained.

“A major component of SIGINT is COMINT, or Communications Intelligence, which focuses on the communications between parties of interest. Even if communications are encrypted, Traffic Analysis, or the study of who’s talking to whom, how frequently, at what time of day, or - historically – in advance of what sort of action, can be used to learn about the intentions of others.”

And this is relevant to journalists, he added:

“For starters, data is information, or raw intelligence. The job of the analyst, or the data journalist, is to identify signals in that information in order to identify something of meaning – ‘intelligence’ about intentions, or ‘evidence’ for a particular storyline.

The VentnorBlog story, he said, describes how a ’sharp-eyed follower of movements at the plant’ knew where two barges were headed and at what time – valuable journalistic information:

“Amid the mess of Solent shipping information was a meaningful signal relating to the Vestas story – the movement of the barge that takes wind turbine blades from the Vestas factory on the Isle of Wight to the mainland.”

Do you have suggestions for sources of ’signals intelligence’ journalism? Or examples of where it has been done well?

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – working with developers

Laura Oliver — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:29:14 +0000

Collaboration is key. Developers are often keen to contribute to, and experiment with news content, so try and cross traditional working boundaries to create new online projects. Try and attend off-patch events to broaden your knowledge base. Tipster: Judith Townend.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link - we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

News numeracy: online tools for reporting numbers

Laura Oliver — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:56:09 +0000

Following on from Steve Harrison’s excellent two-part guide on news numeracy, ‘How to: get to grips with numbers as a journalist’, here’s a round-up of some of the best online tools and sites for journalists when reporting figures and stats:

ManyEyes

By uploading text or tables you can create simple piecharts to more complex maps or bubble charts. There are also options for text-based visualisations.

For creating charts try:

Using a spreadsheet in Google Docs – you can highlight a table of data and select from a range of simple 2d and 3d graphs and charts.
Online spreadsheet service Zoho Sheet (looks similar to Google Docs and requires registration, but claims to allow integration with Microsoft Powerpoint and Excel)
Fusion Charts – for creating interactive, flash charts

Mr Excel

Everything you could ever want to know – and more – about using Excel spreadsheets for data analysis and number crunching.

Daytum

Can be used to track multiple sets of data and present them in a combination of charts, lists and graphics.

Helpful lists

Journalism trainer Mindy McAdams has a great round-up of data visualisation resources, including this list of 175+ data and information visualization examples and resources.
10,000 words offers some inspirational infographics and a ‘how to’ on creating charts.

Any other tools that you use? Let us know and we’ll add them to the list.

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ReadWriteWeb: Journalism needs data

Judith Townend — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:06:05 +0000

As Zach Beauvais points out in his post for the ReadWriteWeb, it’s not new that facts are crucial to journalism.

“But as we move further into the 21st century, we will have to increasingly rely on ‘data’ to feed our stories, to the point that ‘data-driven reporting’ becomes second nature to journalists.”

“The shift from facts to data is subtle and makes perfect sense. You could that say data are facts, with the difference that they can be computed, analyzed, and made use of in a more abstract way, especially by a computer.”

Full post at this link…

Journalism.co.uk is extremely interested in the #datajourn discussion.

Computer-assisted reporting is also nothing new, the use of data in journalism is not particularly radical, but new developments in technology, mindset, and accessibility mean that data-sets will have a new place in the profession.

Join the conversation and please get in touch with your thoughts: judith@journalism.co.uk.

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PDA: Journalists and developers join forces for Guardian Hack Day 2

Laura Oliver — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:00:37 +0000

Nice round-up from Kevin Anderson on the projects created at the Guardian’s second Hack Day – an event to see ‘what journalists and developers could come up with in just a day’.

Projects included:

a visualisation of swine flu news – showing the number of news stories compared with outbreak areas that had received less coverage
creating Google gadgets for individual Guardian sections
an iPhone app alerting users to Guardian events and helping them find their way their with Google maps

Idea-inspiring stuff.

Full post at this link…

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Chris Amico: Lessons in data journalism and ‘frameworks for reporting’

Laura Oliver — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:05:13 +0000

Interesting stuff from journalist Chris Amico reflecting on his project Patchwork Nation – ‘covering complicated national issues from a local perspective with a lot of data to back it up’.

Amico describes the framework he applies when reporting on complex data sets/starting an investigation with data – of particular interest are the tips on what he doesn’t do, which makes the process faster.

“What all this means, in terms of daily reporting, is that we don’t have to start over on every story. Instead, we have an ongoing story that develops incrementally, moving update by update, with a big picture evolving as we go.”

As a rule of thumb, however, he says: “Starting with data but no story tends to be a slow process. Ending up with a story but no data makes me feel like I haven’t done my job.”

Full post at this link…

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Adrian Holovaty: Is data journalism? The answer

Laura Oliver — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:58:51 +0000

“1. Who cares?

2. I hope my competitors waste their time arguing about this as long as possible.”

Full (-er) post at this link…

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#DataJourn part 1: a new conversation (please re-tweet)

Judith Townend — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:27:53 +0000

Had it not been published at the end of the workday on a Friday, Journalism.co.uk would have made a bit more of a song-and-dance of this story, but as a result it instead it got reduced to a quick blog post. In short: OU academic Tony Hirst produced a rather lovely map, on the suggestion (taunt?) of the Guardian’s technology editor, Charles Arthur, and the result? A brand new politics story for the Guardian on MPs’ expenses.

Computer-assisted reporting (CAR) is nothing new, but innovations such as the Guardian’s launch of Open Platform, are leading to new relationships and conversations between data/stats experts, programmers and developers, (including the rarer breed of information architects), designers, and journalists – bringing with them new opportunities, but also new questions. Some that immediately spring to mind:

How do both parties (data and interactive gurus and the journalists) benefit?

Who should get credit for new news stories produced, and how should developers be rewarded?

Will newsrooms invest in training journalists to understand and present data better?

What problems are presented by non-journalists playing with data, if any?

What other questions should we be asking?

The hashtag #datajourn seems a good one with which to kickstart this discussion on Twitter (Using #CAR, for example, could lead to confusion…).

So, to get us started, two offerings coming your way in #datajourn part 2 and 3.

Please add your thoughts below the posts, and get in touch with judith@journalism.co.uk (@jtownend on Twitter) with your own ideas and suggestions for ways Journalism.co.uk can report, participate in, and debate the use of CAR and data tools for good quality and ethical journalism.

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