Presentation from launch event for this new book, highlighting some of the key takeaways and lessons from the volume. You can buy the book via publisher Abramis: http://www.arimapublishing.co.uk/bookshopuk/bookinfo/book_184549663?bs=uk and on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1lwZGYJ

1. Highlights and
key lessons
Damian Radcliffe
Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism
@damianradcliffe
#SOJCDDJ

2. 30 expert contributors
20 new chapters

3. Context

4. 1. Greater use of the power of data
Across all walks of life – from politics to sport

5. 2. Not as new as you might think…
Statistical chart
invented by
Florence
Nightingale to
show the
predominance of
disease as a cause
of mortality in the
British Army
during the
Crimean War.
(April 1854 to March
1855 and April 1855 to
March 1856)
Been around for over 150 years...

6. You know nothing something John Snow
“How often does a map change the
world? In 1854, one produced by
Doctor John Snow, altered it forever.
In the world of the 1850s, cholera
was believed to be spread by miasma
in the air, germs were not yet
understood and the sudden and
serious outbreak of cholera in
London's Soho was a mystery.
So Snow did something data
journalists often do now: he mapped
the cases.“
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog
/2013/mar/15/john-snow-cholera-map
The other John Snow…

7. 3. Huge breadth and range
Covering all genres and using many different comms styles

8. 4. Unprecedentedly large data sets
391,000 records
Wikileaks' Iraq release
UK: 170 million +
records which can be
explored for free
Creating opportunities and challenges

9. 5. Global Practice
Including:
• Skills
• Format of public data
• Up to date data
• Newsroom integration
Data Journalists often face many of the same issues

10. 5 x Great Case Studies

11. 1. Analysis of news coverage
2015 UK General Election
• Upwards of 170,000 articles
in traditional media and over
a million tweets analyzed.
• 7,000 /30,000 articles p/w.
• Every tweet published by
3,290 political actors and
influencers.
• c.25,000 daily tweets and
over 170,000 tweets p/w.
• Weekly analysis.

12. 2. Conflicts of interest
• Analysis of Local Government
Pension Fund investment data.
• 99 FOI requests.
• Highlighted ethical dilemmas.
• Councils seeking to make
returns while also being arbiters
on planning proposals in the
nascent fracking industry.

13. 3. Perception vs Reality
• Matteo Moretti and colleagues
used data journalism to tackle
Chinese migrant xenophobia in
the Italian city of Bolzano.
• The series about the "People's
Republic of Bolzano” won Data
Visualisation of the Year (Small
Newsroom), at the Data
Journalism Awards 2015 run by
Global Editors Network.

14. 4. How US Intelligence budget is spent
• Leaked by Edward Snowden, published by The Washington Post Aug 13.
• US government has annually released its overall level of intelligence
spending since 2007.
• But ‘it has not divulged how it uses the money or how it performs
against the goals set by the president and Congress.’

15. 5. “How Big Data Busted Abe Lincoln”

16. Implementation
5 x Tips

17. 1. Choice of tools/visual methods matters
Impacts on readability, emphasis and representation

18. 2. Keep it simple
As with journalistic writing, don’t be convoluted for the sake of it.

19. 3. Consider sustainability
How easily can work be refreshed and updated to remain relevant?

20. 4. Show your workings
Especially important if you’re going to criticize public bodies for not

21. 5. Remember you’re still a storyteller
Data without context frequently tells us nothing.

22. Data Journalism
in the future

23. 1. *Must* be mobile friendly
Already a leading media device for many audiences

24. 2. Personalization
Search + interrogation

25. 3. We will all need to be data literate
It will no longer be “cool” to not get math or statistics.

26. 4. Includes knowing how to protect data
Sources may all be electronic. So encryption matters.

27. 5. It won’t be called data journalism
It will just be journalism

28. Thanks for listening
Now buy the book!
http://amzn.to/1lwZGYJ