Today’s newsrooms exhibit few remnants of the utilized, bustling newspaper newsrooms from the decades before. In today’s newsrooms, reporters now have the aid of data scientists, working on top of laptops and screens to share complicated spreadsheets and interactive visualization. This is not simply technological advancement, but it marks an evolution in the production, verification and narrative of story-telling.
Data journalism now has created a powerful tool derived from outdated reporting practices combined with computer programming and statistical analysis. Rather than relying on sources and observations, reporters are now searching large databases and analyzing big data to highlight trends that would previously be missed. Federal spending records, census records, court filings, and social media statistics are valuable sources of unexplored stories.
The implications go well beyond the newsrooms. Readers are receiving news stories with powerful charts, interactive maps, and real-time dashboards allowing the user to dig deeper into the information at their own speed. An article about inequitable housing could include a comprehensive data mapping rent costs in certain neighborhoods, while a campaign finance article could provide searchable databases for all political contributors. These are ways of turning numbers into engaging insight.
Big media have invested heavily in data staff because they are aware larger audiences want something more than traditional text stories. The Guardian data blog, The New York Times Upshot and FiveThirtyEight with its statistical reporting model show us how data journalism engages and retains readers. All have developed viral content consistently by working with complex and complicated information and making it readable.
Democratization of data tools has put smaller newsrooms on even footing with larger organizations. Open-source and cloud-based solutions allow local reporters to examine government budgets, report on shifts in climate, and collect data on public health without dipping into technical budgets. A small newspaper can produce an investigative piece that could compete with national newsrooms.
But with this larger change comes new challenges. Journalists need to learn how to work with statistics, data, and coding in addition to their history in narrative, verification and interviewing. The learning curve is steep, and newsrooms have few trained staff with the technical analysis and evidence-based storytelling skillset.
As always, verification of information has also become more difficult. Data sources are often unpredictable, and the quality and trustworthiness of those sources can vary. That’s why journalists increasingly need to become acquainted with methodology, sampling bias, and statistical significance. Just as false quotes can misrepresent reality, so can misleading visualizations. These possibilities for misrepresentation call for new forms of editorial scrutiny and fact checking protocols.
The public at large is reaping the benefits of a big shift in the world. Improved accountability in government as spending habits are standardized and budgeting actions documented. The look of social issues as trends in demographics can be mapped, and economic status can be illustrated. Science is more public facing every day prepared to inform decision making with good data and documentation.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence will be propelling these trends, with acquisition of data even being automated and patterns identified with minimal human input. In some cases, we are even threatened by simple story creation. There’s still great value in the human aspect of definition, context, and moral decision making.
BreakingNews would also be breaking down information. In the spirit of this pitch, BreakingNews in operationally resembles journalism’s breaking down of complicated data sets and getting to truth hidden within statistics. I view information’s vastness as a benefit for journalism’s mission of public informing, but see other ramifications. The article of press continues to evolve in a new information rich environment that values and requires accuracy and access to information.
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