Data journalism storytelling: making sense of numbers to report the news

Citation

Borges Rey E (2014) Data journalism storytelling: making sense of numbers to report the news. Statistics in Journalism Practice and Education: a cross-Atlantic comparison of best practices and approaches, Sheffield, UK, 31.01.2014-01.02.2014. https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/journalism/events/statistics/programme

Abstract
Statistical figures as part of news reports are intended to provide a reliable account of events based on systematic data collection. Yet, these mathematical abstractions are often strong drivers of misinformed public opinion, when journalists biasedly use samples, data, surveys, polls and reports to produce their pieces (Moore, 1995; Huff, 1991). The quest for insightful news stories coupled with an abundance of data procured by present day systems, have compelled data journalists to become Big Data ‘Wranglers' and curators of enormous data streams extracted from datasets and databases. However, the processes employed by this select group of journalists to interpret and make sense of the statistical material contained within financial reports, expense forms, material made available through FoI requests, etc., remains much of a mystery. Furthermore, how they are able to generate a story from databases and consequently produce a visualisation which contributes to the overall understanding of the piece remains unclear. Influential texts by Gray, Chambers & Bounegru (2012), Smit, Haan & Buijs (2013) on Data Visualisation and Nygren & Appelgren (2013) on Data Journalism Practice represent a small portion of scholarly works attempting to shed light on the operationalization of the data journalism storytelling dynamic, nevertheless, with the recent emergence of Data Journalism Units at major broadcasters and newspapers in Britain, the practice seems to be carried out intuitively by the few journalists competent and confident enough to perform this type of journalism. Within this context, this paper examines the conception process of a data journalist and how it impacts the various elements involved in the production of a data journalism report. It focuses on the practices used by these professionals to filter databases and datasets, identify and isolate newsworthy elements from numerical data, translate mathematical abstraction into components of a news story and process peripheral material to create visual constructs. The study presents results based on a sample of in-depth interviews conducted with data journalists based at the Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald, STV and BBC Scotland.