www.public.asu.edu/~sdoig/IJF2014/

Data journalism:From idea to storySteve DoigCronkite School of Journalism,Arizona State Universitysteve.doig@asu.edu@sdoig

Why do data journalism?

What is “data”?

Finding data story ideas

datadrivenjournalism.net/

IRE’s ExtraExtra feed

theguardian.com/news/datablog

Informants and whistleblowers

Read documents

Work backwards from your idea!

1. What statements do you want to make?

2. What variables are needed to make those statements?

3. Who would collect data with those variables?

4. How will you get the data from the collector?

1. Statements?• Lede = hypothesis• Bullet points = statements• Examples for a crime and

courts data story:• “Crime has increased/decreased

X % since...”• “The X per 100.000 violent

crime rate of Y City is the worst ...”

• “Only X % of reported crimes result in arrests...”

2. Variables needed?

• Columns = variables• Rows = records• Two main kinds of variables• Categorical: Sex, city,

postal code, type of crime, etc...

• Numeric: Age, cost, population, weight, arrests, accident, etc...

3. Who collects those variables?

4. Get the data!

Public records tools

Data formats?

Avoid PDFs

Avoid PDFs...but if necessary...

• Convert to *.xls with:• Acrobat Pro• Zamzar• CometDocs• (many others)

...Now what??

You have data...

Clean the data

Data cleaning tools

Look for patterns

Excel tools

•Sort•Filter•Functions•Pivot tables

Brain tools – math and statistics

Brain tools – math and statistics

Friday 1130-1300 (Hotel Sangallo)

EJC MOOC – free!!

Data journalism story elements

Data journalism story elements

Data journalism team• You!• Other reporters• Editors• Graphic artists• Photographers• Videographers• Page designers• Web designers• App developers

Other DDJ workshops

Questions??