{"id":4552,"date":"2009-05-20T23:14:55","date_gmt":"2009-05-21T03:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=4552"},"modified":"2009-05-20T23:14:55","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T03:14:55","slug":"the-golden-age-of-data-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2009\/05\/20\/the-golden-age-of-data-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"The golden age of data journalism?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Computer-assisted reporting <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Database_journalism\">or CAR<\/a> has been around, well &#8212; ever since there were computers. Even when I was in journalism school (which was longer ago than I care to remember), we learned about databases we could search, etc. But the explosion of Web-based tools and ways of sifting through and sharing data has created something approaching a revolution, and the potential benefits for journalism are only just beginning to reveal themselves. If this movement has a patron saint, it is probably <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Adrian_Holovaty\">Adrian Holovaty<\/a>, who gained renown while working on data-driven features at the Washington Post, then created the amazing Chicagocrime.org as one of the first Google Maps mashups, followed by his fellowship-financed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.everyblock.com\/\">Everyblock<\/a>, which aggregates local data about an area.<\/p>\n<p>Another recent example of how data can drive reporting, and how Web-based tools can extend and enhance that reporting, comes from several British newspapers &#8212; primarily The Guardian &#8212; and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/news\/datablog\/2009\/may\/15\/mps-expenses-houseofcommons\">their coverage<\/a> of an emerging expense scandal involving British politicians. One of the really interesting things that The Guardian has done is to publish all of the expense info they have through a laboriously detailed and publicly accessible Google <a href=\"http:\/\/spreadsheets.google.com\/ccc?key=phNtm3LmDZEObQ2itmSqHIA\">spreadsheet<\/a>. As Paul Bradshaw <a href=\"http:\/\/onlinejournalismblog.com\/2009\/05\/19\/using-google-spreadsheets-as-a-database-no-it-really-is-very-interesting-honest\/\">points out<\/a> at the Online Journalism Blog, this structure actually allows reporters (or in fact anyone who is interested in the info) to extract useful data simply by <a href=\"http:\/\/ouseful.wordpress.com\/2009\/05\/18\/using-google-spreadsheets-as-a-databace-with-the-google-visualisation-api-query-language\/\">changing the URL<\/a>. Someone has even created a page where you can <a href=\"http:\/\/ouseful.open.ac.uk\/mpExpensesSearch.html\">run queries<\/a> on the database with a simple click.<\/p>\n<p><i>(please read the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niemanlab.org\/2009\/05\/the-golden-age-of-computer-assisted-reporting-is-at-hand\/\">rest of this post<\/a> at the Nieman Journalism Lab)<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>Bonus link:<\/b><\/p>\n<p>See Adrian Holovaty&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.holovaty.com\/writing\/data-is-journalism\/\">definitive, two-part answer<\/a> to the question &#8220;is data journalism?&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Computer-assisted reporting or CAR has been around, well &#8212; ever since there were computers. Even when I was in journalism school (which was longer ago than I care to remember), we learned about databases we could search, etc. But the explosion of Web-based tools and ways of sifting through and sharing data has created something &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2009\/05\/20\/the-golden-age-of-data-journalism\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The golden age of data journalism?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}