Data-driven approaches to journalism and advocacy

Jacopo Ottaviani – @JacopoOttaviani

www.themigrantsfiles.com

https://vimeo.com/97210043

www.themigrantsfiles.com

www.themigrantsfiles.com

www.themigrantsfiles.com

Input

• Data
• Numbers
• Statistics
• Tables
• Reports with figures
• Spreadsheets (e.g. Excel)
• Geographic data
• Other structured datasets

Output

• Text articles
• Video
• Radio
• Visuals (charts, maps)
• Online campaigns
• Series
• Vaster media operations

Data-driven stories in a nutshell

From this:

Or this:

Or this:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/14/world/middleeast/syria-war-deaths.html?_r=0

Or this:

http://www.visualisingadvocacy.org

http://briefandtothepoint.blogspot.de/2008/03/icaro-doria-flag-art-real-meaning-of.html

Or this:

Or a combination of them 

i.e., running a cross-platform strategy

Combining languages, means and outlets helps to access multiple audiences

(those that can trigger impact)

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/sep/09/greenpeace-hires-investigative-journalists-meiron-jones

1. http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-half-a-billion-dollars-for-haiti-and-built-6-homes
2. http://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief

Data is not necessarily the only element the story is based on.

Data is not necessarily the only element the story is based on.

Data journalism can be integrated within traditional content

Data is not necessarily the only element the story is based on.

Data journalism can be integrated within traditional content

Data is a tool to strengthen and 

complement existing methods to tell stories and make campaigns more credible and solid

Data can be seen as a goldmine of stories, as well as a resource to contextualise narratives

Digging into a dataset can lead you to interesting stories.

You can aggregate, filter, refine, cross and finally visualise data.

Calc / Excel – spreadsheets

CartoDB (maps)

OpenRefine

Datawrapper (charts)

Infographics / Data stories

Visualising information for advocacy

https://visualisingadvocacy.org

Some standard methods to build data-driven narratives

• More inspiration to find data stories here: http://datatherapy.org/activities/activity-finding-a-story-in-data/

1. Research questions
2. Zooming in/out
3. Local vs. Global
4. Data humanisation
5. Contextualisation

Working in team

Data expert
Journalist/Campaigner
Project manager

Working in team

Data expert

Journalist/campaigner

Project manager

FOIA

Design

Social

media

Developer

Data can be used to maximise

the credibility and impact of stories

Thanks!

Questions?

@JacopoOttaviani