Data Journalism lecture - Week 3: Start working with Data - Spreadsheets, basic newsroom math.
Lecture date: 23 Sep 2015
MA in Journalism
National University of Ireland, Galway
Title slide image from The Data Journalism Handbook
10. Measures
of
Centrality
Average
(mean):
Total
of
the
value,
divided
by
the
numbers
of
value
Median:
The
middle
value
of
an
ordered
list
of
values
Mode:
The
most
common
value
hBps://www.mlsplayers.org/salary_info.html
11. Percentage
change
Comparing
new
to
old.
Formula:
(new
–
old)/old
*100
15. Hands-‐on/Exercise:
1-‐
Percentage
change
of
thej
crime
between
2014
Q1
and
2015
Q1
for
all
Garda
division
in
Ireland.
2-‐
Rate
of
thej
crimes
in
all
coun9es
in
Ireland
(with
respect
to
the
listed
Garda
divisions).
Tip:
For
Crime
rate
look
for
popula;on
sta;s;cs
in
CSO,
try
to
merge
the
two
tables,
and
not
to
copy
and
paste
each
figure
manually.
16. Resources:
Data
Journalism
Handbook,
Chapter:
“Understanding
Data”.
Newsroom
Math
Cheat
Sheet,
by
Steve
Doig
Data
Smart
book,
John
Foreman.