- Annie Daniel
- Tom Meagher
- Mark Nichols
How can news organizations create a sustainable culture for data and interactive journalism? In some cases, when one dynamic, charismatic CAR leader leaves for a new job, the data team left behind suffers and struggles to rebuild. Get practical advice and tips on ways to build a data culture in your newsroom that's sustainable and independent of any one staffer. How can data teams make a lasting impact on newsroom leadership and culture?
How do we make sure we're not seen as expendable?
About 42% of reporters use data regularly, about half of organizations have someone doing data. But if there's someone who does do data, they're probably the only one.
Appetite for data training varies widely. Most people don't want to leave their newsrooms to learn.
Who uses data?
- Beat or projects reporters who learned skills on their own or through IRE
- Designated data reporter/editor (singular)
- Team of several journalists dedicated to data reporting/interactives/news apps
Mark Nichols (MN): Be the data evangelist. Invite yourself to meetings. Create usable in-house databases. Brown-bag lunches.
MN: There's more data available now. Journalists are interested in data earlier.
What does the future look like? Is it necessary that we still have data reporters/editors, or will everyone be one?
Annie Daniel (AD): It's possible that will happen, reporters are getting more comfortable doing basic things. Allows people with data skills to do more interesting things.
Tom Meagher (TM): If there isn't someone with that title, it's easy to overlook it altogether. It isn't part of the day to day job for everyone yet.
Audience: What are our aspirations for what data journalism is? If it's just getting basic numbers from spreadsheets, sure. But maybe we can go past that.
AW: Reporters report on the data, we publish it.
When it's viewed as a prestige team, how do we work better day to day? When someone leaves, who's responsible.
MN: Make the data seem important to reports and editors on every story. Editors are important in setting the culture.
TM: Make you colleagues' jobs easier.
AD: Hiring is important. Mentorship/intern programs. Let newer people bother you.
AD: Two kinds of people, people who adapt and people who fix it. User testing. They may not want to bother you with "It's broken."
MN: Sometimes you have to be your own cheerleader.
TM: Envy can be a very powerful marketing tool.
AD: Sometimes editors don't think about it; they're more in contact with the reporter. It probably isn't malicious. Consider writing a policy.
MN: Editor helps. Show value of data to your story.
TM: Data isn't magic and editors need to understand what it can do and what its limitations are.
AD: At the end of the day we're reporters. Learning in public. Most of our job is calling people and asking really dumb questions.
Good idea.
Title doesn't make you known.
Annie Daniel makes charts, maps and web apps at The Texas Tribune. Prior to joining the Tribune, she interned with the Washington Post’s graphics team creating charts and graphics for print and web. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill where she studied journalism and political science. Annie lives in Austin, Texas where she knits, bakes and reads science fiction. @anieldaniel
Tom Meagher is the deputy managing editor at The Marshall Project, where he leads a team of designers, developers, visual journalists and reporters covering the criminal justice system. He's part of the team behind "Klaxon," an open-source tool for monitoring the web for changes. A veteran reporter and editor, he previously led an interactive team for the Digital First Media newspaper chain and was the data editor at the Newark Star-Ledger. @ultracasual
Mark Nichols is data journalist on the national desk of USA TODAY. He has worked as a data specialist for the digital reporting team at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati, OH, and was the computer-assisted reporting coordinator for The Indianapolis Star for nearly 20 years. @nicholsmarkc
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