Editors' Blog | Journalism.co.uk » Data journalism

#followjourn – @smfrogers Simon Rogers/data journalist

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:19:04 +0000

Who? Simon Rogers

Where? Simon Rogers is editor of the Guardian Datablog and Datastore. Hear him speak about open data in this week’s podcast.

Twitter? @smfrogers

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to Rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – interactive map tutorial for local election coverage

Rachel McAthy — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:50:54 +0000

Any journalists reporting on the local elections may like to try out this interactive Google map tutorial for visualising council ward boundaries, on the Online Journalism Blog. The guide to creating a ward map was created by journalist Daniel Bentley.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – dive into the data journalism handbook

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 01 May 2012 07:30:46 +0000

Any journalist interested in data journalism and improving their skills in this area should take a look at the new data journalism handbook, published this weekend. The handbook started as a draft guide pulled together in just 48 hours at last year’s Mozilla Festival in London.

Contributors to the guide include data journalism experts from outlets including the Guardian, Wired.co.uk, the BBC, the Open Knowledge Foundation and the New York Times. The guide includes advice on finding and using data, with plenty of case studies along the way.

The handbook also states that it “can be freely copied, redistributed and reused under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license”.

Contributors to the Data Journalism Handbook retain copyright over their respective contributions, and have kindly agreed to release them under the terms of this license

Journalism.co.uk runs training courses in data journalism. There are two levels: introduction to data journalism, being held on 9 or 28 May, and intermediate data journalism, which will run on 29 May. Both are being run by Kevin Anderson.

Those looking to expand their skills quickly can book on one of the introduction to data journalism courses and the intermediate course. If you book both options the cost is at the reduced rate.

This is the last time we will be offering this course led by Kevin Anderson due to his commitments – so take advantage of the final opportunity to learn from this former BBC and Guardian journalist.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – getting started in data journalism

Rachel McAthy — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:06:48 +0000

On his Online Journalism Blog Paul Bradshaw outlines the key steps that those keen to enter the data journalism field will need to get to grips with. These range from collecting together sources of data relevant to your patch, as well as learning the skills required to get the data, clean it up and find the story within.

Here is a link to his detailed guide, complete with advice from other experts also.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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#ODCC – Open data and the ‘new digital fields of exchange’

Rachel McAthy — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:45:35 +0000

Today marked the first Open Data Cities Conference which kicked off in Brighton, set up by former head of digital development at the Telegraph Greg Hadfield.

The conference said it would “focus on how publicly-funded organisations can engage with citizens to build more creative, prosperous and accountable communities”.

Among those citizens are of course the journalists working to encourage the opening up of data held by such organisations, wishing to use it to inform their audience about the local area and/or their interests.

“Connected localism” and adopting a “principle of openness”

An interesting phrase used at the conference was “connected localism”. The man behind it, Jonathan Carr-West of the Local Government Information Unit, spoke to the conference about the importance of creating a cultural mindset around openness, as opposed to just focusing on whether or not data is useful. And once this mindset has been established, “connected localism” can thrive.

We’re going to hear a lot today about data and what we use it for and how we make it useful. That’s really important and I don’t want to move away from that too far, but I would suggest … usefulness is not the whole story.

We don’t always know what’s useful … We need to adopt … a principle of openness. Whether you’re a small organisation, a council, a government.

He added the “assumption” needs to be that information is made open and data is shared.

Don’t over-think whether it’s going to be useful or not.

And this “principle of openness” is “what creates a field of exchange within which connected localism can occur”.

If we have openness as the way of doing things, if it is culturally embedded in our practice, that would begin to enable that connected localism.

We’ll talk a lot about open cities, but we should remember in this sense it’s not just making the city open, it’s that open data is effectively a new city.

It enables us to perform radical transformations to public services, to how we live … that we need if we’re to meet the profound challenges our society faces.

He cited Mumsnet as an example of “connected localism”, and one of the “new digital fields of exchange where people can connect”, and share/discuss/solve common interests.

Encouraging responses to information requests

Tom Steinberg of MySociety offered some tips for conference delegates on how to encourage more open data and the release of information, such as that asked for in freedom of information requests:

1. Don’t expect to win an economic argument about open data with people who do not have some other reason to think it’s a good idea. It is really hard with open data as it is a new issue so literature is new.

2. You should show them tools that will improve their lives based on open data. If you’re persuading a councillor use something like TheyWorkForYou and show them how they can get sent email alerts when an issue is mentioned in parliament. 10 per cent of everyone working in parliament uses it each week.

3. Don’t shout too loudly about how it [open data] will hold everyone to account and expose wrongdoing. If people are overworked, having their lives made harder is not a thing that will make them your friend.

4. Make mock-ups. For lots of kinds of open data there aren’t good examples as government hasn’t released the data. But use the amazing power of Photoshop to say ‘here’s a page where people could go to, for example, if they wanted to complain that their bin had not been collected’. This is a way of connecting the abstruse nature of data to a concrete thing.

He suggested that bodies such as councils should consider having a person specially dedicated to looking out for, and filtering, requests, and possibly add a button to their websites asking exactly what data people want.

How the BBC is opening up its archives

An interesting example of how one organisation is opening up its archived data is the BBC, as speaker Bill Thompson, who is head of partnership development in archive development at the broadcaster, explained.

The situation, as he posed it, is about turning the BBC “into a data repository with an API” and making this data “available for public service use, for people who can find a value in it”.

One project called BBC Redux provides a store of digital recordings which, when combined with the BBC’s Snippets project, enables users to search programmes, such as news bulletins, from the last five years, for the mention of a given keyword using subtitle data.

For more from the conference follow #ODCC on Twitter.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – data journalism inspiration

Rachel McAthy — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:00:18 +0000

Mindy McAdams has created a Storify featuring lots of examples of data journalism to inspire budding data journalists, as well as background reading and other resources, which she has posted on her blog.

Examples include projects by the New York Times and ProPublica.

See the post here.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – try this tutorial on using Google Fusion Tables

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 07:50:43 +0000

At the Guardian Open Weekend Kathryn Hurley from Google and Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian’s Datablog, ran a session on using data and working with Google Fusion Tables.

Kathryn Hurley has helpfully published her workshop notes on Google Fusion Tables online. They act as a step-by-step guide to getting started in data journalism using the free software from Google.

Simon Rogers has also published his slides on Fusion Tables and an explanation of how the Guardian uses data.

Journalism.co.uk runs training courses in data journalism led by Kevin Anderson. There are two levels: introduction to data journalism, being held on 9 or 28 May, and intermediate data journalism, which will run on 29 May.

Those looking to expand their skills quickly can book on one of the introduction to data journalism courses and the intermediate course. If you book both options the cost is at the reduced rate.

This is the last time we will be offering this course led by Kevin Anderson due to his commitments – so take advantage of the final opportunity to learn from this former BBC and Guardian journalist.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – using Visual.ly to create free infographics

Rachel McAthy — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:00:09 +0000

On the International Journalists’ Network website Margaret Looney outlines how journalists can use Visual.ly to produce free infographics.

Announced at SXSW, Visual.ly presents its new tool that makes data visualization easy – Visual.ly Create, enabling users to create free infographics in a snap.

As Looney explains the resulting infographic could be embedded on a website or saved, “or you can use the site as a portfolio for all of your graphics by directing visitors to your profile”.

See the full post here.

Journalism.co.uk wrote about the tool last year, see the post at this link.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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Tool of the week for journalists: Data.gov.uk’s map-based search

Sarah Marshall — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:43:28 +0000

Tool of the week: Data.gov.uk’s map-based search

What is it? An option of searching for data sets by geographical location

How is it of use to journalists? Since the launch of Data.gov.uk just over two years ago, and the promotion of open government data, the site has become a go to place for many journalists in search of a data set.

The site now has a map tool which allows you to search for data by location, potentially useful for journalists working on local news sites, newspapers and radio stations.

The map-based search allows you to draw a search area, submit the area and find data relating to that location.

Not tried your hand at data journalism? This guide written for Journalism.co.uk by Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian’s Datablog tells you how to get a grip with data journalism.

Journalism.co.uk also offers a one or two-day course in data journalism, led by Kevin Anderson. The next introduction to data journalism courses are being held on 9 May or 28 May. The intermediate data journalism course will be on 29 May. Those looking to expand their skills quickly can book on both courses, turning it into a two-day course and saving £50 on the course fees.

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#paywalls12 – Niche content paywalls: three success stories

Sarah Marshall — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:27:23 +0000

The journey from print to digital is “a bit like making trains that float, in case they need to go back on the canal,” Steve Hewlett, Guardian columnist and presenter of BBC Radio 4′s Media Show.

His analogy came at the opening of today’s Paywall Strategies event, which Hewlett is chairing.

Three niche publishers spoke on the panel, along with Tom Whitwell from the Times.

For B2B publisher Lloyd’s List Group, publisher of the 277-year-old daily print newspaper Lloyds List ,which specialises in shipping and commodities news, “Print comes third behind mobile and web,” Adam Smallman said.

“We have sought to provide bloody fantastic content. That’s our paywall strategy,” he added.

Lloyd’s model is a high-price subscription which companies pay, providing access for their employees.

Out of the 7,000 subscribers, 4,000 receive the daily print copy.

A huge focus for the Lloyds List Group is the merging of data and journalism. Smallman illustrated how data led to a story which saw him interviewed on each major US network after last month’s sinking of cruise ship the Costa Concordia.

Data collection meant Lloyds was able to report that the ship had previously come even closer to the island off which it sank, coming within 230 metres of land last year.

Another niche publisher on the panel was Incisive Media, which owns a range of specialist titles.

Jon Bentley, head of online commercial development, said 65 per cent of people who come to Incisive sites never come back. “Therefore focus on your fans who do return,” he recommended.

And those who do not return look at just 2.6 pages per visit, compared with 7.11 pages viewed at by “customers”.

Their aim is therefore to convert readers from “fly-by to fan”, Bentley said, explaining it can be tough with just 5 per cent taking up a trial.

Rob Aherne, of Haymarket Media Group, talked about a different type of niche content: motorsport titles.

The sites – Autosport, Motorsport News and Castrol EDGE World Driver Rankings – have 1.1 million users viewing 20 million pages a month.

“Our paywall has saved us as a business,” he proclaimed.

After trialling a free model and a hard paywall, they have settled on a “freemium” option, with some free content and readers asked to ay £5.50-a-moth for additional content. Those who buy the magazine get a digital subscription included.

So what will people pay for? “Words and pictures – and it is all ad free,” he explained.

Just 1 per cent of readers pay to access content, but those account for 11 per cent of site traffic. “They are loyal, they are engaged,” Aherne added.

The motorsport titles break news outside the wall, but provide content for deeper engagement behind the wall.

Readers subscribe because “they want to know more than the bloke next to them in the pub,” Aherne said.

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Getstats: 12 ‘number hygiene’ rules for journalists in full

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:42:25 +0000

A campaign launched by the Royal Statistical Society has proposed 12 “rules of thumb for journalists” in order to encourage a better understanding of numbers in news.

Getstats is also calling for numeracy and statistics to be taught in journalism schools.

More details and a 12 point summary is at this link.

The full 12 rules of “number hygiene” for journalists are below:

1. You come across a number in a story or press release. Buyer beware. Before making it your own, ask who cooked it up; what are their credentials; are they selling something. What other evidence do we have (what numbers are they not showing us?); why this number, now? If the number comes from a study or research, has anyone reputable said it is any good?

2. Sniff around. Do the numbers refer to a whole group of people or things or a sample of them? If it’s a sample, are the people being questioned or the things being referred to a fair representation of the wider group? Say a company is claiming something applies to the population at large. If it is basing the story on a sample, such as a panel of internet users, the company goes back to time and again then beware: the panel may not be representative.

3. More probing. What was the sample asked? The wording of a question can hugely influence the answer you get. People’s understanding of what it means to ‘be employed’ or the nature of ‘violent crime’ may differ. What the public understands may not match the survey researcher’s idea. In government surveys bigamy was till recently classed as a violent crime. Might researchers’ choice of words have led people into a particular response?

4. One number is often used to sum up the group being measured, the average. But different averages measure different things. The mean is extremely sensitive to highs and lows: the very fact of Bill Gates coming to live in the UK would push up mean wealth. The median tells us, for example, the income of an average person – half the population get less, half more. Comparing earnings, the mode tells us the salary most people earn.

5. There is a lot of uncertainty about. We need to be sure the number on offer is a result and not just due to chance. With a sample, check the margin of error, the plus or minus 3 per cent figure, usually stated by reputable polling companies. A poll saying 52 per cent of people are in favour of something is not definitively saying half are in favour: it could be 49 per cent. Beware league tables, except in sports reports. Chelsea is higher than Arsenal for a simple and genuine reason: the side has collected more points. With hospitals or schools, a single score is a never likely valid basis for comparison (a teaching hospital may appear to have a worse score, but only because sicker patients are referred to it). Comparisons between universities or police forces are unreliable if the scores fall within margins of error. Midshires scores 650 on the ranking and Wessex 669: they could be performing at the same level or their respective positions reversed.

6. The numbers you are given show a big increase or sharp decrease. Yet a single change does not mean a trend. Blips happen often. Blips go away, so we have to ask whether the change in the numbers is just a recovery or return to normal after a one-off rise or fall (what statisticians refer to as ‘regression to the mean’). The numbers may come from a survey, like (say) ONS figures for household spending or migration. Is the change bigger than the margin of error?

7. Unless researchers carried out a controlled experiment (such as a trial of a new drug, based on a randomly chosen group, some of whom don’t know they are getting a placebo), it’s very difficult confidently to state that a causes b. Instead, the numbers may show an association (a correlation) between two things, say obesity and cancer. Beware spurious connections, which may be explained by a third or background factor. If use of mobile phones by children is associated with later behavioural disorders, the connexion could be the parents, and the way their behaviour affects both things. If the numbers suggest an association, the important thing is to assess its plausibility, on the back of other evidence. Finding a link can stimulate further study, but can’t itself be the basis for some new government policy. Recommendations for changing daily behaviour such as eating should not be based on speculative associations between particular food and medical conditions.

8. A key question for any number is ‘out of how many?’ Some events are rare — such as the death of a child. That’s why they are news, but that’s also why they deserve being put in context. Noting scarcity value is the way to reporting the significance of an event. An event’s meaning for an individual or family has to be distinguished from its public importance.

9. Billions and millionths are too big and too small to grasp. We take figures in if they are humanized. One way is comparing with, say, the whole UK; another is to plot the effect on an individual. Colourful comparisons can make risk intelligible: the risk of dying being operated on under a general anaesthetic is on average the same as the risk being killed while travelling 60 miles on a motorbike.

10. Good reporting gives a balanced view of the size of the numbers being reported. Better to focus on the most likely number rather than the most extreme, for example in stories about the effects of a flu pandemic. ‘Could be as high as’ points to an extreme; better to say ‘unlikely to be greater than’. Numbers may be misperceived so try to eliminate bias.

11. Risk is risky. ‘Eating bacon daily increases an individual’s lifetime risk of bowel cancer by 20 per cent.’ Another way of saying that is: out of 100 people eating a bacon sandwich every day one extra person will get bowel cancer. Using the first without noting the second tells a story that is both alarmist and inaccurate. If the information is available, express changes in risk in terms of the risks experienced by 100 or 100,000 people.

12. The switch from print to digital brings opportunities to present numbers more dynamically and imaginatively, for example in scatter plots. Graphics can show a trend. Stacked icons in graphs can show effects on 100 people. But the same rules of thumb apply whatever the medium: is the graphic clear; does it tell the story that is in the text.

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Tool of the week for journalists: Tableau Public, for data visualisations

Sarah Marshall — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:40:30 +0000

Tool of the week: Tableau Public

What is it? A data visualisations tool, allowing you to create interactive graphs, charts and maps.

How is it of use to journalists? Tableau Public is a free tool that allows journalists to upload an Excel spreadsheet or text file and turn the data into an interactive visualisation that you can embed on your news site or blog.

Here are five examples of how Tableau has been used by news sites to tell stories. A quick browse will give you a sense of how the tool can be used to explain news stories.

One of Tableau’s real strengths is providing the reader with the opportunity to move a slider or select a drop down and see how the visualisation alters when a variable changes.

In order to create a visualisation you will need a PC (or a Windows environment on your Mac) and to download the free software.

I was able to upload an Excel file and within less than two minutes had produced a map showing what are predicted to be the most-populous countries in 2100.

I had previously used this data set to create a visualisation in Google Fusion Tables and Tableau was equally easy to navigate.

For those who have not tried creating data visualisations, Tableau requires no technical ability and is easier to use than the wizard options that allow you to create graphs in Excel.

There are options for sorting and reordering data, plus changing the colours and view options.

Tableau also has a paid-for option. The difference between the free tool and the premium option is that Tableau Public requires you to publish your visualisation to the web.

Tableau launched version 7.0 a couple of weeks ago and will soon be adding functionality allowing you to create a map using UK postcodes, according to Ross Perez, data analyst at the US-based company.

Disclaimer: Tableau Public is a sponsor of the Journalism.co.uk-organised conference news:rewired. This relationship did not influence this review.

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#jpod: A guide to using numbers in journalism

Sarah Marshall — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:42:04 +0000

The vast majority of journalists are tasked with reporting statistics from time to time. From hospital waiting times to crime reports, company results, government figures and the annual budget, all have scope for inaccuracies and reporters can get the story wrong.

This podcast looks at how numbers can lead to errors and embarrassment for journalists.

Journalism.co.uk technology correspondent Sarah Marshall hears advice from Michael Blastland, author and creator of the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less; James Ball, data reporter at the Guardian; Professor Steve Schifferes, course leader in financial journalism at City University and Andy Trotter, chief constable of the British Transport Police.

You can hear all our podcasts by signing up to the Journalism.co.uk iTunes podcast feed.

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Ten things every journalist should know in 2012

Sarah Marshall — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:49:14 +0000

Image by Tormel on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Here are 10 things every journalists should know in 2012. This list builds on 10 things every journalist should know in 2009 and 2010. It is worth looking back at the previous posts as the ideas are still relevant today.

1. Learn from Leveson. The Leveson inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the media has specifically scrutinised journalism and the industry, but social media (and therefore popular opinion) is also holding it to account. Journalists need to be sure that the means really do justify the ends for a story and must be crystal clear about the legalities of their actions. And they need to be more transparent about the sources of stories, where the source will not be compromised. If a story originates from a press release, acknowledge it.

2. Curate and share. Social sharing is a great way for a journalist to add value to their personal output (also see point 9).

You can share articles of interest to you by tweeting, adding curated links on your personal blog and using bookmarking site like Delicious or Pinboard.

Doing so will raise your social capital and help you to engage with your peers, contacts and your audience. Online influence and reputation may well become as important as your CV with the rise of tools like Klout and PeerIndex.

3. Invite others in. Your readers graze content, snacking from several news sites – so help them out. Include links to external content on your news site and post news from other outlets on your organisation’s social networks.

Although readers will still have a brand affinity, they are much more promiscuous in their reading habits, consuming content from a wide variety of news outlets. So acknowledge this and make your news site a destination not just for your journalism by providing links to content from other publishers.

4. Know your niche. Technology is driving the delivery of niche content. Where specialist titles once required consumers to hunt them down via postal subscriptions and visits to larger newsagents, niche content is now delivered instantly online and via apps and is more easily found. Specialise in an area that interests you, blog about the subject and share links.

5. Think multimedia on multiplatform. There has been much debate about tablets revolutionising publishing, but many magazines are simply pushing out their print version via non-interactive PDFs, aided by new delivery systems such as Apple’s Newsstand.

Publishers are opting to offer consumers a laid back reading experience in the knowledge that tablet owners read in the evenings when they have time to consume in-depth news. Publishers will also need to play to the strength of the tablet device, allowing interactive content such as video to shine, and focus on providing consumers with a reading experience that is different to that of a newspaper.

Journalists can be ahead of the game by developing skills in video, audio and other types of multimedia that can be used to enrich storytelling in apps and on other digital devices.

6. Data is not just for geeks. Data is driving journalism but many journalists are afraid of the numbers, spreadsheets and code. But all journalists need to know how to spot the nonsensical numbers in a press release, to be able to accurately make sense of statistics, and understand how to find a story in a study.

Take these examples of data used for investigative journalism from the Guardian: Afghanistan war: every death mapped and reporting the riots. But as well as in-depth data reporting, be aware of the free tools to get you started such as these ManyEyes visualisations, showing the number of women in British politics by party, of Manchester City Council spending or debt in the English premier league.

Be aware that data can be misinterpreted. Take this Express front page splash on a cancer study and read about the pitfalls highlighted by data journalist James Ball in this presentation given at news:rewired, a conference for journalists.

7. Focus on what works – do less to do more. No news organisation however well resourced can achieve everything. Work out what works and strive for excellence in that area.

Sometimes you need to take a step back to see where your priorities should lie. You may realise it is better to write one original feature than chase five stories already in the public domain.

8. Look to new off-site audiences. Don’t just focus on clicks on your site. If 10,000 people listen to your podcast on SoundCloud, 1,000 people click on a Storify or 10 people comment on a story on Facebook without visiting your site they are still being introduced to your title and brand and may visit in the future.

9. Add value. Readers will be able to get a story that is in the public domain from several sources so make your content count. Consider yourself a collective educator by adding value to everything you produce by including links and background information. Think of the way the Guardian’s liveblogs, such as Andrew Sparrow’s politics liveblogs, curate and add context. Act as a guide to your readers on your site, on Twitter and on other platforms.

10. Online communities are no substitute for offline communities. Journalists must still meet people, build trusting relationships and nurture real-world contacts.

For a day of inspirational ideas in journalism sign up to attend news:rewired – media in motion, a conference for journalists. It is being held at MSN HQ, London on 3 February 2012.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – try ScraperWiki’s new screencasts

Sarah Marshall — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 08:45:43 +0000

Data journalists and anyone interested in the field should take a look at ScraperWiki’s new screencasts.

There’s a link to them on Nicola Hughes’ DataMinerUK blog.

Tipster: Sarah Marshall

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link– we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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