Data journalism to me is basically interpreting large amounts of data to tell a story. This is important to journalism because interpreting data is a skill that the general public may not be able to do/have time to do. Our job is to make sense of the information and explain it in the simplest way possible, using articles, visuals, and applying context. One example I have from my own personal experience was a decision to look over the federal budget numbers because there was a heavy dispute at the time about the deficit (I believe it was when the Republicans refused to pass the budget), however, I wasn’t able to make sense of the numbers easily. I couldn’t come to a reasonable conclusion at the time besides that our deficit had grown steadily in recent years under many presidents. I would like to learn to interpret data such as this, so I don’t have to take another source’s word for it. In this case, I believed many sources to be biased. Also, I could apply my interpretation and write my own articles.
I believe the role of data journalism in the future of journalism will be a predominate one. Information is produced on a mass scale, and whether it’s interpreted in algorithms to determine what movies we’d like to watch or how well our federal budget is being managed, it’s potential is unlimited. Real data is also the best source possible because pure numbers are not biased and do not have a perspective like a source that is a person would, however, how the data is interpreted can make a difference in the conclusion reached. Also, the data may not even be interpreted correctly at all, so there would still be some issues with credibility. as journalists we must also decide what data is ethical to use. The picture I used for this blog is a logo for Big Data the band, who writes songs that relate to issues of privacy due to the NSA, social media, and the adverse effects of marketing. Hopefully, most data evaluated for journalist purposes doesn’t infringe on privacy but instead informs the public of possible government abuses, ect. Although, I do believe we should take into consideration the affects of collecting and analyzing large amounts of data.
For one reason or another, this video wouldn’t embed successfully. Sorry about the link- but check it out!
Since I mentioned this band, I thought I’d share this video with you guys!