A data journalist is a specialist who collects and analyzes big data in order to write news and articles based on it. The data journalist looks for it in public reports of government services and non-profit organizations, in statistics of private services and analytical agencies, studies databases and other sources.
The task of the data journalist is to study the data and present it visually: in the form of graphs, tables or individual web pages that his audience will understand. That is, a data journalist translates massive data, which only specialists can understand, into understandable formats for ordinary readers.
The data journalist is one of the professions of the future
For example, at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, The Washington Post ran an article simulating the spread of SARS-Cov-2 and explaining why social distance is important.
Rents and directions for the profession
Working with Big Data and visualizing it is a trend that has not subsided since the mid-2000s, and is unlikely to subside in the near future. This is facilitated by the digital format of the media, and the spread of open source software, and the concept of “open data,” when information from government agencies and companies is published on the Internet in the public domain.
Therefore, specialists with the skills of data journalists are required not only in the media, but also in government agencies, finance, banks, analytical agencies – everywhere where it is necessary to work with data and present it in a visual form.
The content of a data journalist’s work is also changing. As Nick Newman of the Reuters Institute for Journalism Research writes, data journalism is looking for new ways to present information. For example, many European and U.S. publications visualize data in the format of stopis for social networks.
Another trend is the personalization of content. When we post information about our age, gender, social status, neural networks notice this and adjust to our interests. For example, YouTube recommends videos based on what and how long you have watched. The same thing will happen with date-materials: children, professional lawyers or parents will be shown their versions of articles.
Where will the profession come from
The profession of data-journalist is at the intersection of humanities and technical knowledge, so there are two ways to come into it from existing professions. First, professional journalists can become such specialists if they learn data collection and analysis software. Second, data analysts who learn how to work with text and learn narrative and editorial techniques can go here.
Key skills of a data journalist
First and foremost is the ability to build a logical narrative that engages the reader. This will require writing and storytelling skills.
“I’m confused by ‘journalism’ in the word ‘data-journalism.’ I prefer to talk about data-storytelling. More often than not, companies don’t want to hire data journalists so much as specialists with the skill to explain what’s going on in the data. There are plenty of them, and so are data scientists – they are regularly supplied by online schools and universities. But there are few people who can write and – most importantly – draw conclusions from the data,” notes Arthur Morris, a data journalist and data visualization specialist and senior lecturer in the Department of Media Communications.
Data-journalists need to master the methods of working with the information on the internet: searching, processing and checking it out. Knowledge of cartography and where and how to obtain data for analysis will be useful. You also need skills in working with databases and programs like Excel, Tableau as well as the language Python and its libraries: Seaborn, pandas, SkLearn.