Data expert moves on from 'telephone journalism'
Regional news journalists offered masterclass for future skills
"In the end we'll no more talk about data journalism than we talk now
about telephone journalism" says Francis Irving. The computer programmer and freedom of information activist best known for his involvement in TheyWorkforYou.com is busy working out how that shift will happen.
"How can we embed the skills and training and tools to work with data thoroughly into journalism? And at the same time encourage the culture of investigative journalism- by professional journalists, and with the power of the internet by making apps for citizens as well."
The skills gap is an issue for many journalists getting to grips with what Tim Berners Lee referred to as the future of journalism.
And regional news journalists, hit by reduced staffing levels and training budgets, risk being left behind which has prompted the Digital Editors Network to organise a two-day masterclass which Irving is involved with.
"Local newspapers don't have the resources to send people
to every court hearing or council meeting any more. Datasets can be made collaboratively at a national level and sliced
locally.
"Apps can be built to help users tell stories that are more relevant to
them, without having to write them all by hand."
The workshops are being led by the American Tom Johnson a former editor of the Scientific American and co-founder of the Institute for Analytic Journalism and will be looking at topics such as;
* Collaboration tools for the newsroom team
* Customizing search-and-retrieve data tools
* Extracting data from documents
* Data cleaning and formatting
* An elementary introduction to scraping web sites for data
* Using web "cloud" tools to clean and display data
* How to tease meaning and stories out of data and then tell those stories in multiple ways
There's more details about the event and a link to book places here.
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