Research Methods in Journalism

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Chris Knox

Data Editor at the New Zealand Herald

chris.knox@nzherald.co.nz

What is data journalism?

Learning goals

Practical skills

• Where and how to get data in New Zealand
  • policedata.nz
  • figure.nz
  • Stats NZ
• How to use data for and in stories
  • Datawrapper
  • Workbench
  • Flourish
  • Google sheets

Mindset skills

• Confidence to source and use data in a story
  • Data is not scary
• Data is (just) another source
  • Just like other sources data must be treated fairly and in context

One number in isolation is almost certainly misleading

Why use data in stories?

• Context
• Trust
• Clarity and/or conciseness
• Engagement

What does data give the narrative?

Not sure exactly what to call it - but I think it is important.

Data is a social product

Sometimes what isn’t measured is more interesting that what is.

Women’s work - 1891 vs today

Ethnicity in New Zealand 2001 to 2018

Source: @Thoughtfulnz

Inspiration

What roles does data have in journalism?

• More and more stories need (or are enhanced by) analysis and communication of data.
  • Unresolved (NZ Herald)
• Data can serve as the primary source for an story.
  • Follower factory (NY Times)
  • Hurricane Maria’s victims
• Data can also be the used to tell the story
  • Bussed out (Guardian US)

Chart choice

• Different charts will highlight different aspects of your data more effectively.
• Choose the chart that shows the aspect of the data that you are interested in
• Line and Bar charts are often a safe choice
• Take care with maps and pie charts

FT Visual Vocabulary

Bad or deceiving charts

• Charts and graphs can be used to deceive
  • Don’t do this.

The best way to get a sense for bad charts is to peruse vis.wtf or /r/dataisugly. There is also a good writeup here

The most common bad things are:

• Incorrect, missing, or misleading labels
• Inconsistenct scales
• Truncating scales
• Comparing things that shouldn’t be
• Too many things

A few rules

• Barcharts always start at 0
• Line charts don’t need to start at 0, but always ask yourself if the range you select is going to make an insignificant change look important
• Only use pie charts for
  parts of a whole
  and only when there are less than 5 categories
• Avoid maps for showing quantities
• LABELS

New Zealand is a mess (this doesn’t cover DHBs, Police Districts, Civil Defense, or Fire and Emergency areas)

There are no suburbs

Ask for help! - the Figure.NZ really want to help data@figure.nz

Also take a look at Figure.NZ Places

All summary statistics hide things

The mean and standard deviation are the same for each of these graphs

Useful links

• datawrapper
• figure.nz
• google drive