Recent posts in my Data Journalism Category

January 23, 2013

“If we don’t understand the financial system, we aren’t doing our jobs as journalists” - Chris Taggart of OpenCorporates at Hack/Hacks London

The latest Hacks/Hackers London meet-up was crammed with talks from people at Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters and the Financial Times. Striking a rather different organisational note at the end of the evening was Chris Taggart. I’ve previously seen Chris talk about OpenlyLocal, but this talk was about another open data project — OpenCorporates. Here are my notes…

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“Data Journalism: not the job of one department” - Emily Cadman & Martin Stabe at Hacks/Hackers London

I’ve been publishing my notes from the talks at the newly revived Hacks/Hackers London meet-up. Representing the Financial Times on the evening were Emily Cadman & Martin Stabe. Here are my notes…

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January 18, 2013

“Data + Other data + People = Readable story” - Himanshu Ojha at Hacks/Hackers London

Hacks/Hackers London returned this week, with an evening of talks about financial and data journalism. Himanshu Ojha is a data journalist at Thomson Reuters, and was talking about the story behind “The Unequal State of America”. Here are my notes…

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January 17, 2013

“Financial Graphics at Thomson Reuters” - Sam Arnold-Forster at Hacks/Hackers London

Last night was the first Hacks/Hackers London after a break, and it was jam-packed with talks about financial and data journalism. The second slot was taken by people from Thomson Reuters, opening with Sam Arnold-Forster talking about “Financial graphics”. Here, as ever, are my notes…

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“All Bloomberg journalism is data journalism” - Marianne Bouchart at Hacks/Hackers London

After a lengthy hiatus, Hacks/Hackers London was back this week with a data journalism themed evening. First up was Marianne Bouchart from hosts Bloomberg, whose plush offices gave the whole evening a rather different feel to the usual dingy pub basement. Here are my notes…

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July 12, 2012

“Tight-fitting dresses and data-viz” - Anna Powell-Smith at Hacks/Hackers London

Anna Powell-Smith was talking to the Hacks/Hackers London group about her experience of having a small service she’d built gain lots of national press attention, and giving her ten tips for building great data-based interactives. Here are my notes from the talk.

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July 5, 2012

Neal Mann & Simon Rogers on social media and datajournalism at Activate

Neal Mann and Simon Rogers appeared on the same panel at the Guardian’s London Activate Summit, talking about some of the ways that digital technology has changed the way that they carry out their roles as journalists. Here are my notes.

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July 3, 2012

“3 tips for working with programmers and journalists” - Nicola Hughes at Hacks/Hackers Canterbury

Nicola Hughes, aka @DataMinerUK, was talking at the first meeting of the Canterbury Hacks/Hackers group, giving her ten top tips for working with journalists and “proper” programmers if you were just starting down the road of being a datajournalist. Three things struck me as particularly important, and applicable to a wider circle of activity.

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February 27, 2012

Hacking data to build trust - Duedil.com’s Damian Kimmelman at Hacks/Hackers London

This month’s Hacks/Hackers London meet-up had a business theme to it, and the first talk was from Damian Kimmelman about duedil.com. The site - recently shortlisted for a Guardian MEGAS award by a judging panel that I chaired - brings together a host of data sources about businesses into one aggregated service. Here are my notes from the talk.

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January 19, 2012

Low numbers + small change = BIG NEWS

Headlines today have suggested that the murder rate has gone up by 5%, or that knifepoint robbery has gone up by 10% in England and Wales. The figures also show that crime overall has dropped by 4%. Reporting crime statistics is a data journalism minefield however, and last year I attended a fascinating set of talks on the subject.

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November 29, 2011

“Hacking the rendition flights” - Stephen Grey at Hacks/Hackers London

At last week’s Hacks/Hackers London meet-up, Stephen Grey was talking about the journalistic process behind his work to uncover the CIA’s network of rendition flights. Here are my notes from the session.

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August 12, 2011

Riots are an opportunity for long-form data journalism

It is easy to think of “data journalism” as being about automatic computer analysis of large datasets, but good data journalism has story-telling at the centre. Over the coming days, weeks, and months there is a lot of data journalism to be done about the riots and looting in the UK. It is an opportunity for long-form data journalism, and the responsibility of the media to use this data in a way that helps us understand the riots, not in a way that prolongs their negative impact.

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August 3, 2011

“Visualising big data” - Christopher Osborne at Hacks/Hackers London

On Tuesday I blogged my notes from my colleague Laura Oliver’s talk about news community management at Hacks/Hackers London. The other talk at last week’s event was from Christopher Osborne of ITO World, about visualising big data.

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May 28, 2011

My notes from news:rewired - Data journalism and social media

I spent a really good day at news:rewired yesterday. With one track dedicated to data journalism, and another to social media, it was no surprise that I found plenty of things of interest. Here are my notes on some of the things that stood out for me.

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May 27, 2011

Data journalism debate at FutureEverything

I recently appeared as part of a panel session at FutureEverything talking about data journalism. I’ve already blogged the four points I was planning to make. Here are my notes from the talks given by those I was sharing the stage with: Chris Taggart, David Higgerson and Paul Bradshaw

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May 12, 2011

Martin Belam - "Linked data / Linked stories" at FutureEverything

A brief return from my self-imposed blogging exile this week - today I am in Manchester talking on a panel about data journalism at the FutureEverything festival and conference. This is the script that I’ve written for my five minute opening monologue. It seems way too long to fill just five minutes... Martin Belam - “Linked data / Linked stories” at FutureEverything I often feel a bit of a fraud talking at these kinds of events. Just as at Hacks/Hackers...
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February 16, 2011

"Software developers and data journalists" - Daithí Ó Crualaoich talk at the Guardian

We've been having a series of lunchtime talks in the Guardian about digital products and services, one of which was recently given by Daithí Ó Crualaoich, one of our developers. I've worked with Daithí on data-driven projects like the inclusion of MusicBrainz IDs and ISBNs in our Open Platform API. He has also worked on some of the high profile datajournalism projects that have appeared on guardian.co.uk in the last couple of years. In his talk he was addressing the software development part of datajournalism, and I though he made some very salient points about the relationship between the two cultures of journalism and programming.

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January 10, 2011

"Do Information Architects have a role in datajournalism?" debate on SIGIA-L

There has been a recent thread on the SIGIA-L mailing list featuring Eric Scheid and Stephen Collins asking about "the role of IAs in Data Journalism"

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November 15, 2010

"The web data revolution - a new future for journalism": Datajournalism event at the Guardian

On Friday I managed to sneak into the Scott Room in Kings Place to see a little of an event about journalism and data that was being put on for Internet Week Europe. Dr. Aleks Krotoski was introducing Simon Rogers, David McCandless, Heather Brooke, Simon Jeffery and Richard Pope. The panel delivered a lot of pithy quotes, Heather Brooke describing being an investigative reporter as basically being 'obsessively nosey', David Macandless said that 'the Internet pours into his eyes...
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September 7, 2010

Blog round-up: Berlin datajournalism meetup

I've spotted a few blog reactions to last week's datajournalism meetup in Berlin, and thought I'd gather a couple of them here, which focus on the importance of linked data being free from commercial restraint, on the German attitude to privacy on the web. And David Essex.

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September 6, 2010

What would the LA Times' datajournalism about teachers look like in the UK?

Last week I was in Berlin for a meet-up around the themes of open data and datajournalism, and one of the speakers was Eric Ulken. He had worked on the LA Times 'datadesk', a loose affiliation of 'computer assisted reporters', investigative reporters and members of the interactive technology and graphics teams. They worked on projects like the 'Homicide blog' and the maps that accompanied it, which came out of a single reporter's dogged perseverance in blogging every single homicide that...
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September 1, 2010

Linklog special: datajournalism at The Guardian & The Observer

A special edition of the linklog, with a list of things that I mentioned in a talk about datajournalism at The Guardian & The Observer which I gave at the 1st Datajournalism Meetup in Berlin in September 2010.

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August 11, 2010

From Afghanistan to Zygons - Data journalism at The Guardian

Over recent weeks there has been a focus on datajournalism at The Guardian & Observer, following the publication of the Afghan War Logs. Simon Rogers has been busy being interviewed and blogging about it - and I've chipped in on guardian.co.uk with a blog post about the Information Architecture behind our World Government Data search.

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