Data Journalism – part 2

City University, MA magazine journalism,March 10 2010

Sorting and visualising data

Finding data

Search for your MP, or use this file, which has them all

• Paste it into Excel• Use the data import wizard (on 2007 this is

automatic)• You want to delimited cells (split them by

comma or space)

• Open the data in Excel• Make sure the headings are at the top• Insert a table• Now tell us – which MPs have the biggest expenses?

Visualising with Many Eyes

• Many Eyes is a web-based visualisation tool• It can create simple and effective graphs/charts• Go to http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/ or

search for Many Eyes

• Paste in your MPs data from Excel into this box• And change the £ columns to numbers• You may need to take the £ out of the data

• Staffing

• By staff cover vs comms spend (2 metrics)

• You can’t feed too much data into a table/chart• So we’ll have to be clear about what we want

• Cost of staying away vs travel costs

Spreadsheet tools

A GREAT SITE: http://excelnotes.posterous.com/

Counting data

• =COUNTIF(range to count within, “what to look for and count”)

• How many MPs spent more than £500 on travel?

Separating columns…. And merging columns

1. Go to http://tinyurl.com/magshags (GDoc)2. In Excel/Gdocs see if you can

a. De-merge the fields (delimit them) into two columnsb. And then unmerge them back into one column

The answer: text to columns

(This works for CSV files too!)

To unmerge them again…• Concatenate merges cells for you• Formula: =CONCATENATE(1st cell, “space“, 2nd cell)• Copy and past that all the way down column C or D

And if there are more than two names, add another cell:

See what you can come up with:- What stories could you work on with these tools for Xcity / Eastbound?

Any other business

• Community strategy– How are we getting on? Any problems?– Are you connecting with audiences?– Are you using interaction to improve journalism?

PORTFOLIO ASSIGNMENT (75%)• A link or links to your blog(s)Links to Twitter account and

other online presences • Links to relevant bookmarked material on Delicious.com• A group evaluation of your work and strategy, approx 1500

words covering – newsgathering – production – distribution – commercial opportunities– law and ethics where relevant

You should support your evaluation where appropriate with reference to specific examples, research on the area, and copies of analytics (e.g. Google Analytics, Bit.ly analytics, Twitter followers, Facebook group size/friends, etc)

MARK SCHEME - Portfolio

• Newsgathering (research):– Originality of material– Preparation– Breadth and depth of research, including number of bookmarks, RSS feeds, sources etc.– Quality of links

• Range of links

• Production:– Originality of production approach– Brevity, Adaptability, Scannability and Interactivity;– Use of HTML and content management system (CMS) where appropriate– Optimisation of images and multimedia– Use of online tools– Creativity in experimentation– Clarity of writing– Creativity and personality of writing style– Spelling, grammar, punctuation and sentence structure;– Narrative structure

• Law, ethics, market and strategy– Understanding of copyright, libel, contempt, data protection and other law– Understanding of online ethics– Understanding of commercial and market context (what are the business opportunities in this field?)

COMMUNITY (25%)Your objectives are:

– To establish channels of access for sources to contact you– To collate a network of contacts that you might need to access– To establish relationships of trust or mutual benefit that you may call on to improve your journalism– To establish a distribution network for your content

This assignment should document how you became a member of those communities and built (or failed to build) social capital. Some questions you may want to address are:

– What need does the community have that isn't being served?– What do people have to do to become accepted in that community?– Language, culture and practices– Your objectives and your strategy - and how that influenced your choice of technology– What did you do that worked - and what failed?

You should submit the following elements:

Your evaluation of your community strategy, approx 1500 words, covering your research, strategy, execution and analysis (use these headings in your evaluation to help structure & focus it)

– This should be referenced clearly with printouts of supporting evidence (e.g. blog posts, tweets, bookmarked material, live material)

– If you are referencing analytics, e.g. Google Analytics, Bit.ly analytics, Twitter followers, Facebook group size/friends, etc. please include a printout in a clearly referenced appendix

Points on blogs

• You’re not posting enough• Posts aren’t focused enough– What is the story you’re telling? What is the point

in your post, why should anyone read it?– How does it serve your audience

• Is it professional? (Doesn’t mean it can’t be conversational or entertaining)

Link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, linkLink, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link, link

And embed video.