BY: Prudence Nhavingo
Data journalism is the use of numerical data in the production and distribution of information in the digital era.
It results from combining traditional news with digital information to present a story involving statistics, data visualization, and public requests. In data journalism, sources of data include raw data, which has not been processed for meaningful use to become information. There are two sections of data sources: internal data and external data.
Data journalism is important to both journalists and the media audience, which comprises people who read news. It assists journalists in telling complex stories through engaging infographics, helps them explain how a story relates to individuals or audiences, updates their skill set, and can be a tool of data journalism. It positively impacts the audience by saving them time and providing an independent interpretation of official information.
Data journalism opens new approaches to storytelling, represents the future, tells richer stories, adapts to changes in our information environment, combines number-crunching with wordsmithing, and reveals insights that might not be immediately visible. As Mr. Adam Oxford, a freelance media consultant who works at the nexus of data and journalism, commented regarding data journalism:
“You should not accept any written data as it is, but you must verify it with or through some data tools to see if the numerical data written is correct or not,” explained Mr. Adam Oxford during the News Literacy Workshop.
Journalists can use data journalism to present a story by utilizing various data tools that assist them in gathering accurate data, such as Wazi Map, Stats SA, Municipal Money, Open Justice, Where to Vote, African Data, Open Gazettes, South African Lottery Explorer, PMG- Parliament Monitoring, Evictions Project, and Employment Stimulus.
“Data journalism is our life, and you can create your own data using one of the data tools, pieces of information, and making your pie chart or graph using the information you have collected,” said Ms. Sholain Govender-Bateman, a journalism lecturer at Tshwane University of Technology. In data journalism, there are six types of data journalism stories: Novelty, Outlier, Archetype, Trend, Debunking, and Forecast. Data journalism is used to unite several concepts and link them to journalism.
