I believe data journalism is any story that takes information and makes it visual, understandable and accessible to the average viewer. It transforms something measurable to something viewable, which in turn makes it something people can act upon. The visuals and stories that come out of this type of journalism makes issues become real. A data story is published the issue/topic , it can’t be taken back, denied or ignored as easily.
Data journalism is going to be an exciting part of our industry’s future. In a world where anyone can publish anything, it is so important to produce a story that can be backed up by another credible source that can be backed up. By using hard data as a source, the fact of the stories can’t be discredited. It gives a solid foundation for our work.
It also will make transformation into digital journalism easier for news outlets. We are definitely already in an age of digital journalism, but many small and legacy newspapers aren’t utilizing the tools and power we have access to online.(A few have caught on.) As the idea of data journalism grows, so will professional’s understanding of the technological tools we already have.
At first we may be feeling like this….
But with practice and applying data journalism to the work world I believe it can be a long lasting asset to the industry.