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Introduction do Data Journalism & Open Data

Marco Túlio Pires (@mtrpires)

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What’s for today?

  • Open data
  • Data journalism?!
  • Impact in the industry!
  • Teams & workflows

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What’s open data?

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Open data & Open knowledge

Open Data is information which can be freely used, reused, and redistributed, by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose - OpenDefinition.org

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Open Knowledge is what Open Data becomes when it is made useful - accessible, understandable, meaningful and able to help someone solve a real problem

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Open data principles

  • Open license
  • Access
  • Open format

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opendefinition.org

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Data journalism?!

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Why now?

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Jornalismo de dados?!

bank account, electoral data, MOOCs, instant messaging, social networks (twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat, vine, Okcupid, Tinder, Secret, Google+, Whatsapp, Telegram), payments systems (credit and debit cards, débito, financing), real estate, flight tickets, government activities, news, enterteinment( Youtube, DailyMotion)...

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Data journalism?!

  • The web is now an adult (20+ years)
  • Free and easy to use tools
  • A wave of freedom of information
  • Readers became users

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Data journalism!?

Competition in the advertisement market

  • New contenders:
    • Google, Facebook, Twitter...
  • New mentality:
    • Church and State getting close together?

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Data journalism?!

Traditional journalism

  • Source/specialist
  • Network of contacts: "phonebook"
  • "detective"-journalist
    • Human relations
    • Evidence or leads
      • Documents, pictures, audio, statements

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Data journalism?!

Data journalism

  • Inherits the principles of traditional journalism
  • Dataset becomes the source to be interviewed

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Data journalism?!

dig data = dig invisible stories

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Data journalism?!

Skills from other areas:

  • Computer Science
  • Design
  • Statistics
  • Data analysis
  • Sociology e Anthropology
  • Engineering
  • …!

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Data journalism?!

In the rescue of values that became weak:

  • Rigor & Criteria
    • Scientific method (replicability)
  • Independence/Autonomy
  • Transparency
    • Open data!

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Data journalism?!

Transparência = credibility

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Impact in the industry

The Accent Map (The New York Times)

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Impact in the industry

New players:

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INFOAMAZONIA

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Impact in the industry

Native Ads, beyond:

Narratives that bring scientific rigor, transparency and credibility.

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Impact in the industry

Engagement, closeness, service

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Impact in the industry

Social network, crowdsourcing, big data

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Compile

Data journalism has two ways to start:

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  • a question that needs a dataset to be answered
  • a dataset that needs to be questioned

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Clean

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  • To make sure the data is coherent is also a data journalism act.
  • Two ways: remove human mistakes and convert the data to an open format.

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Contextualise

  • Datasets are not always reliable, challenge your assumptions!
  • We should ask: who collected the data? When? How? Why?
  • All of that will probably lead to another compilation phase.

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Combine

  • Good stories come from more than one dataset
  • The more sources, the better!

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Comunicate

  • Data visualisation
  • New narratives so that the data can also tell the story: maps, graphs, infographics, animations etc.

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Is it journalism?

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Journalism has to do with the reporting of facts so that people can understand relevant issues.

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As a data journalist, we have to bring the data to life.

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Teams & workflows

You may assume at least two roles!

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Research

  • Most important role
  • It relies on news judgement and good searching skills
  • It takes a lot of time

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Text

  • Data without context are only data. Words give them context
      • Exemple:Annual guide to public spending (The Guardian)

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Development and programming

  • Programmers can help during research and visualisation
  • Coordinate who can write and who can program
      • Exemple:Connected China (Reuters)

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Design and programming

  • Designers can help tell the story behind the data in a visual and compelling way
      • Example: 99% vs 1% (The Guardian)

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What are the teams?

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The lone wolf

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Teams with 2

  • The data journalism team at the Guardian in the US produced the awarded Guide to gay rights in the US

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Small teams (~4-6)

  • They can produce innovative projects quickly
  • It can be a proper desk
    • Example: Sandy's Hurricane Map (WNYC)

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Big teams (~20+)

  • They have a defined strategy to create a new kind of online journalism
  • Those teams improve the way we tell stories
  • It is a desk
    • Example: 2012 Olympic Experience �(New York Times)

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Thank you!