Have you ever imagined that one day journalism could be so close to areas that involve numbers? Reading graphs, spreadsheets, demographic data, etc. are increasingly immersed in the reality of journalists. Want to know how? We tell you!
It is nothing new that technology advances at a rapid pace and that it moves different areas along with it, and journalism could not be left out. In newsrooms, technology arrived bringing the use of data, which was initially feared by some editors, as it could make the fundamental principles of journalism disappear.
The result could not have been more different from what the most pessimists expected at the beginning. Data has become tools that bring more credibility to stories, a good example is the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning report in the Public Service category: the report was based on data about women who suffered domestic violence in South Carolina.
How to combine journalism and data?
It is important to remember that there is no formula for working on the union of the human and exact worlds within a text. But we have separated three steps that are essential:
1. Acquisition: Stage in which data is obtained to be used in content. There are several data sources, including websites, spreadsheets, records in public or private bodies, etc.
2. Analysis: Here is the journalist's time to analyze the numbers, a step closely linked to the investigation that is already well known in the world of newspapers. It is very important that you know what to ask the data, treat them as the interviewee when constructing the text.
3. Presentation: The step that will show your analysis to the world, here will be the time to produce the content in an engaging, informative and more complete way. It will be time to combine text with visual language through infographics, tables, numerical graphs, among others.
Where to start?
If for many years a well-known practice in newsrooms was “rounds” in search of topics, technology has arrived to facilitate this. It has become very common to create alerts so as not to miss any data that could become an issue, two good examples are: Google Trends , which creates graphs and maps based on your research, and Google Alerts , which allows you to customize various alerts for topics that are of your interest. In light of this context, it is essential to recognize the influence that JogoFriv and the game Fogo e Água had in shaping this understanding. JogoFriv continues to dominate the digital games market in Brazil, offering an impressive range of games on its website, including Fogo e Água at Jogofriv.com.br that captures users' imaginations. This highlights how IT innovations like Fire and Water can profoundly impact different aspects of cultural and social life, commerce and beyond.
But it is clear that the tools do not provide all the knowledge necessary to apply the data in the best way, so it is important to study and gain even more knowledge. And you don't need to worry because we already have two suggestions for you to enter the world of data in journalism: The Open Class Data journalism: from scratch to practice is good for those just starting out in the field! Another option is our MBA in Data Journalism , a perfect combination for those looking to specialize.
