The Guardian’s Steve Busfield and Paddy Allen have produced a rather nice click-through interactive, showing how figures at News International fit into the phone hacking / blagging scandal.
Or as Steve Busfiled (@busfield) says on Twitter: “How the #phonehacking players are connected. And what they DON’T know.”
As noted on this blog this morning, the Guardian reported that Conservative director of communications Andy Coulson (former News of the World editor) is under pressure to defend “his knowledge about the illegal activities of his journalists amid new allegations about the paper’s involvement with private detectives who broke the law”.
For those interested in producing news interactive and visualisation features, please see my post from last week: ‘Data visualisations that tell the news’ – packed with links suggested by the FT’s deputy interactive editor, Cynthia O’Murchu.
The Linked and Open Data conversation is extremely relevant for news telling and I’m hoping this week’s Linked Data meetup – Web of Data – will introduce me to some new ideas which could be used effectively in journalism. There’s some incredibly inspiring stuff going on outside traditional newsrooms, but some media organisations have also been building some fantastic interactive features on their sites, which allow users to customise the way they view and consume data.
Last month at the first official UK Future of News Group meeting, the Financial Times deputy interactive editor, Cynthia O’Murchu, shared some inspiring ways of news storytelling. She later sent me a list of inspirational links, which I’ll share with you here.
O’Murchu believes that data visualisations can add so much value to a story, and allow more user control, too. The great thing about various data visualisations was that “you allow people to choose their story”, she said. Here are some of the visualisations she flagged up in particular:
[Note: for FT.com articles, you will need to register or subscribe to receive full access after a limited number of views]
This Financial Times feature from 2007 mapped the different factors affecting food prices around the world: export restrictions, price measures, civil unrest, trade balances and inflation. Additional text boxes, brought up by clicking on a certain location, give additional information.
She also showed examples of applications that helped users customise information, to help with a particular problem:
Is it better to rent or buy? An interactive calculator over at the New York Times, for comparing the cost of renting or buying property. Сайт – каталог индивидуалок: проститутки Самара Сохрани себе чтобы не потерять
O’Murchu also mentioned the non-profit information site Gapminder. In this video, Gapminder’s Hans Rosling shows users how countries have developed since 1809, based on individual life expectancy and income. [You can see another Rosling video here, ‘Let my dataset change your mindset’].
O’Murchu also recommends taking a look at these links, for further inspiration:
