From the 6th to the 8th of May 2012 the European Data Harvest Conference brought together the cream of the European data journalism crop in Brussels. For this second edition of the conference on data journalism, organised by Journalismfund.eu, Wobbing.eu and Farmsubsidy.org, about one hundred data journalists with a total of twenty different nationalities gathered at the Erasmushogeschool in the Belgian capital. The aim was to witness and practice new research methods, learn how to find stories out of unstructured information and get access to hidden data by using specialised techniques. Those varied from sending a decisive email to an authority and claiming your Freedom of Information rights to using sophisticated Internet tools such as Google Fusion Tables. The conference was streamlined into four tracks: Wobbing, Journalism Lab, Get the Tools and Farmsubsidy.

Wobbing

Wobbing is becoming an ever more widely used method of doing journalism. A significant portion of this year’s conference was therefore devoted to the wobbing track. Specialists from all over Europe had been invited, resulting in some prominent names giving a total of ten sessions on wobbing. Those names included Martin Rosenbaum (UK), the BBC’s FOI expert, Brenno de Winter (The Netherlands), Dutch journalist of the year 2011, Staffan Dahllöf, co-founders of Wobbing.eu, Mar Cabra (Spain), one of the driving forces behind the FOI searcher database tuderechoasaber.es and Blaz Zgaga (Slovenia), the author of the trilogy In the Name of the State who wobbed thousands of documents to uncover Slovene government’s illegal trade of arms during the UN embargo in the Yugoslav Wars. The presence of Indian WOB specialist Shyamlal Yadav made the conference even more international.

Rosenbaum, who has his own blog on the BBC website, was one of the first to speak. He reminded the audience of what wobbing is essentially about: it’s not about trying to catch one huge fish, but rather going after a lot of small ones. Illustrating his point, Rosenbaum continued with examples of FOI cases the BBC did, such as England’s voting deal with Qatar for their 2018 World Cup bid, the use of fake names by job centre workers and the failing follow-up of the penalty points system for drivers in Manchester.

Yadav talked about some of the stories he had worked on for his newspaper Indian Express and for which he had made use of India’s RTI (Right to Information) Act. He showed how an effective use of wobbing can have an impact on the decisions and policymaking of a country’s government, in his case the Ministry of Finance. After Yadav had wobbed, processed and published information on the excessive foreign travels by government officials, the Ministry decided to significantly reduce the budget. Other stories: the funding of political parties, corruption amongst civil servants, travel destinations of ministers and lapsed life insurance policies.

Some of the participants at the Erasmushogeschool in Brussels (image by Rafael Njotea)

Journalism Lab

Visualization of abstract data by interactive graphics and maps is becoming increasingly important in journalism. It turns a bunch of figures into something understandable and comprehensible without requiring you to write code. During this second edition of the Data Harvest Conference the number of programmers and coders who attended increased significantly compared to last year. This evolution shows that data journalism is getting more sophisticated and requires more teamwork. In the journalism lab track and the get the tools track coders and journalists could meet and exchange ideas.

Stefan Candea (Romania) coordinated the journalism lab track. Stressing that journalists and programmers should work together, Candea invited an international mix of data analysis adepts to share their data and approaches in person or via Skype. Emphasis was on finding partners to work out your story with and on the singularities of journalists and programmers to consider when working together. Ides Debruyne (Belgium) and Brigitte Alfter (Denmark) covered one session to talk specifically on how to fund investigative stories.

Get The Tools

What can you do with applications? Anders Pedersen (Denmark) used Google Fusion Tables to visualize pharmaceutical companies that sponsored doctors and clinics. To do this he used Excel to construct a database with public data of medicines and companies and linked this with Google Fusion to get a clickable map. Peter Andersen (Denmark) presented his project Kamera Spotter and came up with a map that showed surveillance cameras. He questioned the balance between safety and being informed. Crowdsourcing contributed to the results.

BBC information research expert Paul Myers (UK) specializes in tracking down people on the Internet. By using advanced search options and Boolean operators in Google and on social network sites, you can find a lot more information in a shorter time. Duncan Campbell (UK) stressed the importance of backups and of securing your vital data by encrypting it. The HTML format is easier to search through than PDF. It is also important to inform yourself about the use of advanced OCR tools. Journalists do not use them, companies and lawyers do and when you get access to their archives, you can save a lot of time if you know how to handle these tools. A tip for more advanced journalists: before searching the content of a website, index it first and then make use of a spider program.

A break in between the tracks: data journalists from more than twenty different countries attended the conference (image by: Rafael Njotea)

Farmsubsidy

In the farmsubsidy track working experiences were exchanged about the EU Financial Transparency System and the European farm subsidies. The FTD database displays beneficiaries of yearly grants or contracts committed by the Commission. The figures can be downloaded and used for further research. As is usually the case, some information is masked for security reasons. Two other databases that are research favourites are the European Regional Funds and the Research Funds.

On www.farmsubsidy.org journalists can find new data and updates on EU money spent on subsidies for farmers among EU countries. The project constitutes an important FOI case. As Farmsubsidy.org’s Jack Thurston (UK) puts it: “We are experiencing a backlash against open government at the EU level and much of it is founded upon a misplaced sensitivity about personal privacy. These are subsidies to farm enterprises, not medical records. We believe they should be out in the open. Both to guard against fraud and abuse and to promote a better understanding among citizens of how the Common Agricultural Policy works. At this moment, when the future of the CAP is being decided, transparency is needed more than ever.”

Data Harvest Conference 2013

About fifty sessions were given in total during the conference, varying in content and approach, but all of them equally interesting. The conference was concluded by Brigitte Alfter, who thanked the speakers and participants. There was some time left to briefly look forward to the Data Harvest Conference 2013, which will take place from the 9th untill the 11th of May. If the third edition of the conference continues along the same lines as the second one, there is little doubt that it will be an even bigger success.

The competition was open from 19 January until 11 April 2012. We were pleased to receive over 300 complete applications from 60 countries in less than three months, including from Kenya, Uganda, Mexico and Argentina. Entrants ranged from large media groups to regional newspapers, press associations, research groups, and entrepreneurial journalists. The nominations were made by a pre-jury made up of three external experts and the prize administrators, GEN and EJC.

Below is the full list of nominees.

Data-driven applications (national/international)

• Verokuitti / Tax Receipt, Verokuitti, Finland
• Where are you on the global pay scale?, BBC News, United Kingdom
• Transparent Politics, Politnetz AG, Switzerland
• Student Finance Calculator, BBC News, United Kingdom
• Who cracks six figures – or more – among Ontario’s civil servants?, The Globe and Mail, Canada
• Database of Public Procurements, Texty, Ukraine
• Your School, The Australian Online, Australia
• Budget Calculator, BBC News, United Kingdom
• County Scorecard, Capefield ltd., Kenya
• TRAC FM, Trac FM, Uganda

Data-driven applications (local/regional)

• 2011 Illinois school report cards, Chicago Tribune, USA
• Texas Campaign Finance Database: 2000-2011, Texas Tribune, USA
• Government Employee Salaries, Texas Tribune, USA
• Both Sides of the Law, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA
• The 149 members of the 17th Berlin Parliament, Berliner Morgen Post, Germany
• 902911: the calls to Halifax Police, University of King’s College School of Journalism, Canada
• Faceted Exploration and Assessing of Social Media Data on Mobile Devices in San Diego, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
• Texas Public Schools Database, Texas Tribune, USA
• DNAinfo Crime and Safety Report, DNAinfo.com, USA

Verokuitti (Finland) 

Data visualisation and storytelling (national/international)

• Riot rumours: how misinformation spread on Twitter during a time of crisis, The Guardian, United Kingdom
• Our Future Selves – an interactive feature, News21, USA
• 99% vs 1%: the data behind the Occupy movement, The Guardian, United Kingdom
• U.S. Budget Map, TWO-N, Inc., USA
• Violence Against Journalists in Afghanistan, 2001-2011, Nai Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan, Afghanistan
• PeopleMovin, Frog, Italy
• Country equivalents – interactive comparisons, The Economist, United Kingdom
• Every death on every road in Great Britain 1999-2010, BBC News, United Kingdom
• 2011 Brazil State-Level Business Environment Ranking, Editora Abril, Brazil
• Phone-hacking scandal: Who’s linked to who?, BBC News, United Kingdom

Data visualisation and storytelling (local/regional)

• Pedestrian Crashes in Novosibirsk 2011, NGS, Russia
• The old and new ward maps, side-by-side, Chicago Tribune, USA
• The Rise and Fall of Rick Perry’s Presidential Bid, Texas Tribune, USA
• Empty Cradles, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, USA
• Empty Homes, Wales Online, United Kingdom
• Toll of the Recession, The Seattle Times, USA
• 34612: Mexican Drug Deaths, Realitat, Mexico
• Retratos Paraná, Gazeta Do Povo, Brazil
• 1000 Lives, Correio, Brazil

Violence Against Journalists in Afghanistan, 2001-2011 (Afghanistan)

Data-driven investigation (national/regional)

• Subsidies for the Bus Transportation System in Argentina, La Nacion, Argentina
• Poor pupils catching up in exams, The Financial Times, United Kingdom
• Terrorists for the FBI, Mother Jones, USA
• Forex Fight, The Wall Street Journal, USA
• Toxic Europe, Flare Network, Italy
• Did Twitter censor Occupy Wall Street?, The Conversation, Australia
• Tracking the Trades, The Wall Street Journal, USA
• Coal Seam Gas by the numbers, ABC, Australia
• Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities, iWatch News, The Center for Public Integrity, USA
• Operation Saga, El Mundo, Spain

Data-driven investigation (local/regional)

• Methadone and the politics of pain, The Seattle Times, USA
• Decoding Prime, Center for Investigative Reporting and California Watch, USA
• BBC: Serious Untoward Incidents, BBC News, United Kingdom
• Seniority salaries bulk up D.C.’s payroll, The Washington Times, USA
• EMSA sued dozens who where part of utility free service, Tulsa World, USA
• CCTV in Welsh Schools, Wales Online, United Kingdom
• Washed Away, The News&Observer, USA
• How quickly did help arrive where you live?, The Detail, United Kingdom
• Alhmunda, Nrig for investigative journalism / Voices of Iraq, Iraq
• Known to police, Toronto Star, Canada
• Opaque LGUs the norm in NCR, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Philippines

Both Sides of the Law, USA

Next steps

Between 1 and 15 May, a jury of 10 leading data journalism experts, led by Paul Steiger, founder of ProPublica, will decide the six winners for each of the categories. The six winners will be announced during a ceremony which will take place on 31 May at the News World Summit in Paris. Each winner will be rewarded with a certificate and EUR 7.500.

You can watch the video recording of the Data Journalism Awards session at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia here. 

As the EJC/OKF School of Data Journalism at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia is coming to an end, Steve Doig, computer-assisted reporting expert and Knight Chair in Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and investigative journalist Caelainn Barr dived into techniques for getting stories from data.

The last but one workshop of this series organised by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation built in part on what Prof. Doig had covered in the workshop "Precision journalism." Caelainn Barr showcased her work on the E.U. structural funds investigation as a case study in order to put theory into practice. One of the essential lessons the participants to the festival will surely bring home is how crucial Microsoft Excel is as a tool for data journalism.

Prof. Doig and several other speakers of the data journalism panels and workshops stressed many times that everything starts with a simple Excel sheet. "Once you open the file one of the most basic things you can do is to look for outliers: check who is the most, who is the least, the best and the worst performer in your list. If the descriptions matching the items in your file don’t tell you much to understand what the data refers to, you will have to dig deeper with the authorities who provided the dataset," said Doig while demonstrating how to filter, sort and do basic calculations in an Excel file retrieved from ISTAT, the Italian National Institute for Statistics.

Prof. Doig teaching the audience the many functions of Excel

"There are stories everywhere in data. Even the simple fact of being denied data by a given body is a story in itself. If you look at the columns in the spreadsheet, that will tell you what kind of stories you can get out of it. The secret to finding stories in data is finding paths, which are often revealed by doing calculations," he added.

Caelainn Barr introduced her work on the E.U structural funds investigation, a project which took nine months to complete. An immense amount of work went into cleaning data, which came in all sorts of formats and sometimes, such as in Italy's case, made it "diabolical." "This comes from the fact that all E.U. member states are required to publish this information but the Commission did not establish a mandatory format for them to do so," explained the investigative journalist, who worked for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism during the project.

As she progressed through the E.U. analysis of structural funds recipients, Barr realised that "regional authorities had no clue how the money was being spent because they did not have a database storing this information. All these details were out there but it took ages to compare things." The database is now public and anyone can browse and search through it in order to find stories: "We encourage you to use the database. Absolutely get in contact if you have a new project you would like to work on. We had media and broadcast companies interested in stories generated from the database. For example, the BBC was interested in Italy and Spain, and Al Jazeera did a report about the Italian mafia and structural funds."

Once again the venue of the workshop at hotel SanGallo was full of data enthusiasts who engaged in an intense Q&A session towards the end of the workshop.

Investigative journalist Caelainn Barr

Prof. Doig concluded reminding the audience that: "The most important question to ask in any story is 'why'. It is the same with data journalism: once you identify a pattern, ask why that is. Ask the police, the people, the authorities and do the same kind of reporting you normally do in your journalistic profession. Data journalism is just another source, it is a step to the story, it is not a different way of thinking," or, to use the words of Pulitzer Prize winner Paige St. John "doing data journalism is not a way to stay away from the streets."

The last workshop of the Data Journalism School, Spending Stories, will take place on Sunday 29th April at 14:00 at Hotel SanGallo.

Resources:

• Full video recording of this session.
• Notes and tipsheets from the EJC/OKF School of Data Journalism workshops.

This Saturday at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia the first version of the Data Journalism Handbook has finally been released. Six months after the idea was born at the 2011 Mozilla Festival in London, the handbook is finally online, although "corrections will be made in the next days and additional material included," as editor and project coordinator Liliana Bounegru, European Journalism Centre, pointed out at the launch of the book. 

The handbook is the result of a massive international collaborative effort: coordinators Lucy Chambers, of the Open Knowledge Foundation, and Liliana Bounegru said their role was mainly to "facilitate the dialogue and work of the community members that contributed to the handbook."

"The book is about why you should care about data journalism. Feedback is welcome and invited and we hope you will like it," said Chambers. The content of the book, beautifully summarised in a poster created by infographic designer Lulu Pinney, is now freely available online. In May an e-book and a print version will be published by O'Reilly Media.

The Data Journalism Handbook overview by Lulu Pinney

The handbook opens with an overview of what data journalism means to leading practitioners and advocates and examples of what others have done in this field. The aim is to "inspire you to work in this field. The second part shows you how to get started with data journalism and takes you step by step through the data journalism workflow, from getting data by scraping, to submitting FOI requests and crowdsourcing data collection," commented Liliana Bounegru. "Next the book looks at how to make sense of your data, how to get stories from data, and provides an overview of data journalists' favourite tools and examples." The last chapter is dedicated to the essential step of delivering stories and data to the public and engaging communities around your project.

Mirko Lorenz, information architect at Deutsche Welle and contributor to the handbook, congratulated the editors, including Jonathan Gray who unfortunately could not be in Perugia, but whose editorial skill was essential for the success of the book, all the contributors for their "really marvellous work", and said he was very happy to see how many media outlets got involved in the project.

Editors Liliana Bounegru and Lucy Chambers introducing the Data Journalism Handbook

Guido Romeo of Wired Italy informed the audience that the first chapter of the handbook has already been translated into Italian and that enthusiastic contributors willing to help finish the translation are welcome. 

As Aron Pilhofer, editor at the New York Times, said: "There is no lack of tools or training material out there to get you started," and the handbook is the perfect resource for aspiring data journalists.

The second day of the School of Data Journalism in Perugia saw two workshops introducing aspiring data journalists to core skills of the profession. Prof. Steve Doig and investigative journalist Heather Brooke approached the topic of how to gain access to information through Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, which in Italy is still a big issue. The first workshop of the day, entitled Information Wants to Be Free, stressed the importance of going public even about the possible rejections you might face from the authorities when requesting data. "When you are refused access to the information you need for a story, write a piece about it. It doesn’t mean the story goes away. Always remember you are acting as a representative of the public and the public does care about how their money is spent," said Doig.

Steve Doig and Heather Brooke at the Information Wants to be Free workshop

It may also happen that, if the authorities do not push you away directly, they may try to charge extortionate prices to deliver the data you need. Doig invited journalists to ask for a formal cost breakdown which would justify the amount authorities want to charge: "Once you do this they will start reconsidering their position."

Heather Brooke is very active as a campaigner for freedom of information and wants open data to become a statutory right and not an exceptional procedure only a few people are familiar with. "Most people don’t think of the documentation behind public life. Everything that happens in society produces some kind of dataset, which becomes a goldmine for journalists. Data journalism is about identifying these sources of data," Brooke said.

The speakers were later joined by Helen Darbishire, founder of Access Info Europe, who briefed the audience on the practicalities of how to forward a Freedom of Information request to public bodies: "I suggest everybody to have a look at the Legal Leaks handbook. FOI is just one of the information gathering strategies journalists can follow, but there are many different sources that can be accessed. Think laterally and don't give up searching. Never assume you are either going to get information or not. You don’t know where and when you will get it, but it is always worth trying."

Doig, Brooke and Darbishire at the Information Wants to Be Free workshop

The last workshop of the day focused on how to make data pretty. The workshop leaders were Simon Rogers (Guardian Datablog), Mirko Lorenz (Deutsche Welle) and Dan Nguyen (ProPublica). Mirko Lorenz introduced a handy open source tool called Datawrapper, which helps journalists with no knowledge of coding and little knowledge of Excel to produce data visualisations easy and fast. "Rule number one for a data journalist is to try and find data people can understand. The statistical office does a very good job but they do not care if people understand their data. You have to find data that people can relate to and create stories that are relevant to them," said Lorenz presenting the tool developed in cooperation with Nicolas Kayser-Bril.

Dan Nguyen of ProPublica shared tips on how to create effective visualisations readers can fully grasp and interact with. "My advice is to spend time understanding data and what makes it good. Collecting data is the hardest part of the process, as most of the time data needs to be cleaned and mistakes corrected."

Mirko Lorenz, Dan Nguyen and Simon Rogers during the Making Data Pretty workshop

Nguyen stressed once more how the basic tools needed to start with data journalism are nothing more than spreadsheets: "The quality of the data is what makes it interesting. Visualisation starts with data, don’t worry about the tools and just apply the same journalistic principles you normally use in other kinds of reporting."

The experience of the Guardian Datablog closed the meeting, with Simon Rogers showing how to use Google Fusion Tables to create maps starting form a simple spreadsheet. In a sort of "live experiment" he invited the audience to fill in their address in a shared Google spreadsheet and pick a badge to show where each participant is based on a Google map.

The interest around data journalism at the International Journalism Festival is growing and the weekend will offer two more workshops as part of the School of Data Journalism organised by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation.

Resources

• Full video recording of the 'Making data pretty' workshop.
• Full video recording of the 'Information wants to be free' workshop.
• Notes and tipsheets from the EJC/OKF School of Data Journalism workshops.

Data journalism is nothing new. Pioneers such as Philip Meyer, author of the book Precision Journalism, experimented with social sciences methods in journalism as early as the 1970s. One of the first data journalism projects was the investigation into the 1967 Detroit riots performed by Meyer himself on the basis of survey data.

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Moderator Guido Romeo (Wired Italy) and scientific journalist Elisabetta Tola (Formica Blu)

“Precision journalism applies scientific methods and techniques to the journalistic profession” explained Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Doig at the first panel of the School of Data Journalism organised by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation in Perugia, Italy.

Doig and Sarah Cohen of Duke University, a Pulitzer Prize winner herself, briefly introduced the audience gathered at Hotel Brufani to the history of data journalism. Doig explained that one of the most important features required to create a successful data project is "stop talking and start doing work."

"I think that it is no longer possible for a journalist to possess all the skills required by data journalism," added Doig during the panel moderated by Guido Romeo of Wired Italy. "The important thing is to have access to the right people who can help you create a visualisation, mine or extract data and write a good story," he continued, while Sarah Cohen highlighted how "data journalism is team work. In its most basic form an ideal team could include a reporter, a data expert, a visualisation expert and a good writer."

The panel (from left to right): Aron Pilhofer, Elisabetta Tola, Guido Romeo, Simon Rogers, Sarah Cohen and Steve Doig

During the panel Simon Rogers, editor of the Guardian Datablog, presented some of the projects created by its team, such as the analysis of the London Riots and how rumours spread on Twitter in those days.

Aron Pilhofer, interactive editor of the New York Times, reminded the audience that it is extremely important to "show these data projects to the public, it is important they get published so that readers can discover and navigate the stories that are most relevant to them in their daily life."

Journalism as a profession is increasingly going to include skills that at first sight have nothing to do with traditional journalism. "All the people in my team have a computer science or scientific background. The way you present a story is becoming increasingly important and choosing the best visualisation method is the key element to engage your audience successfully" commented Pilhofer during the panel.

Elisabetta Tola of Formica Blu briefly talked about the state of data journalism in Italy and explained that the main problem in Italy is still they difficulty of accessing information. “The situation is very different from region to region. Piedmont for example is really advanced with regards to open data but there is still a lot to be done. Furthermore, national news outlets cannot count on actual teams of data journalists which include developers, data experts or graphic designers."

One of the first examples of data journalism in Italy is represented by the work Amelia Beltramini of FOCUS on the state of Italian hospitals. "Amelia worked by herself, with great effort and perseverance, and she managed to have access to hospital data after two years," explained Tola, also adding that the limit of Beltramini's article lies in "the visual presentation. You can tell that Amelia did the whole work alone: data are published in a table format, but had the project been supported by a different kind of visual presentation it would have surely have had a bigger impact and distribution."

The story of data journalism in Italy has just begun and the field is still open for exploration: to use Simon Roger's words, all seems to show that data journalism will become "just journalism" in the near future. So, aspiring journalists, stay tuned ...

Resources:

• Full video recording of this panel discussion.
• Notes and tipsheets from the EJC/OKF School of Data Journalism workshops.

The second data journalism panel organised by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy focused on the question: "Can data journalism save your newsroom?." Simon Rogers of the Guardian Datablog opened the session and highlighted how the work of a data journalist is strongly linked to the activity of traditional news desks: "We talk to the news desk as much as we can and we make sure that we are part of their conversation and know what they do," explained Rogers, while an overview of some of the Guardian's data projects ran on the screen behind him. 

The panel (from left to right): Caelainn Barr, Aron Pilhofer, Dan Nguyen, Guido Romeo, Simon Rogers, Mirko Lorenz

Information architect and freelance journalist Mirko Lorenz moved the discourse to how data journalism can represent a new and sustainable business model for journalism in general. He drew the attention of the audience to how "media companies are moving out of the attention market they are placed in right now. Social networks are much better at generating attention so news outlets are now moving towards a system based on trust" he said, also adding that trust is a value readers are willing to pay for.

Investigative journalist Caelainn Barr raised a very valid question towards the end of the panel, asking the speakers and the audience at large "what do newsrooms actually need to be saved from?," thus pointing out that the real danger journalism is facing these days is not exclusively related to business models, revenue and sustainability, but is rather dictated by a lack of quality content. "What newsrooms need to be saved from is how news is told and how it is presented. Data journalism does not answer all these questions: to do so we need a change in editorial policies in favour of quality and not output" she said.

Caelainn Barr and Aron Pilhofer

Hearing from the best experts in the data journalism field is a unique opportunity to gain insight into the profession and the potential that this journalistic practice holds, however an important side of the topic needs not to be forgotten: how to make sure the message in data stories and visualisations really gets across to the readers.

Aron Pilhofer from the New York Times admitted that, although a crucial point, audience engagement is still work in progress, at least in his workplace. "I admit we are doing a terrible job on this side. Of course you can see how much traffic a data project can attract, how many visitors, how much time they spend on a page, but this does not tell you if they have grasped the meaning of the story and personally engaged with it. We will need to come up with new ways to engage the audience."

Resources

• Full video recording of the panel discussion.
• Notes and tipsheets from the EJC/OKF School of Data Journalism workshops.

Below is the full video recording of this session with: Antoine Laurent (Global Editors Network), Aron Pilhofer (New York Times), Wilfried Ruetten (European Journalism Centre), Nicolas Kayser-Bril (Journalism ++) and Mirko Lorenz (Deutsche Welle).

Below is a description of this session and the full video recording. 

Journalism is under siege. Traditional models are collapsing. Developing the know-how to use the available data more effectively, to understand it, communicate and generate stories based on it, could be a huge opportunity to breathe new life into journalism.

• What is the potential of data journalism?
• How do you start a data journalism operation?
• How can you start thinking about making money with data journalism?

Speakers: Caelainn Barr - Citywire; Mirko Lorenz - Deutsche Welle; Dan Nguyen - ProPublica; Aron Pilhofer - New York Times; Simon Rogers - The Guardian Datablog; Guido Romeo - Wired Italy.

It does not happen every day to be able to attend a training session taught by two Pulitzer Prize winners in Europe. The occasion is even rarer if the training in question is about data journalism and the location is the small medieval town of Perugia, located in Italy, a country still facing the prehistory of this journalistic practice.

The audience attending this first workshop of the School of Data Journalism probably did not know what to expect from a session named Precision Journalism and Pulitzer Prizes: maybe the best strategy on how to win a Pulitzer through data journalism? Maybe a dive into the personal experience of speakers Steve Doig and Sarah Cohen?

Prof. Sarah Cohen and Steve Doig

All doubts were quickly swept away when Prof. Doig opened a Microsoft Excel file and showed it to the tuned audience: “The data stories we typically produce in the U.S. mostly involve something as simple as counting, summing and sorting,” he said, as he searched his computer to retrieve a spreadsheet showing crime statistics in Italy sorted per region and province. “You have to start thinking in terms of columns and rows: anytime you can put information in this format you can do data journalism,” continued Doig.

Although one hour and a half is a too short a time to fully grasp the potential spreadsheets embody to unearth powerful stories in the public interest, the session provided a good introduction and overview of the many tricks and shortcuts the program offers journalists. “Excel is a great tool that will do very boring and tedious tasks for you” noted the professor of the Walter Cronkite Journalism School, as the audience fought against the hostile Wi-Fi connection to keep up with the exercise.

When asked how to cope with the reliability of data, Sarah Cohen suggested to “compare the same data compiled by different people or organisations, to check if the information matches or is reliable. Of course you can also move out of the statistics and go out in the real world to check for yourself how an incident positions itself on the ground,” she continued. “You may go out with the police one day and see how their reports are filed and where they go and so on. Police statistics often don’t match up with official statistics, but if you know the reason behind it you actually don’t worry too much about it.”

The second workshop on the first day of the School of Data Journalism School, organised by the European Journalism Centre and the Open Knowledge Foundation, was held by Dan Nguyen of ProPublica and Friedrich Lindenberg of the Open Knowledge Foundation. The two developers introduced the audience to the art of cracking PDF files and scraping websites.

Dan Nguyen, journo-hacker at ProPublica

“It would take you an eternity to look through a PDF file to find what you are looking for. What we really want is to get the information into a spreadsheet,” explained Nguyen while the screen showed an apparently unsearchable and long PDF file. “My best piece of advice is: learn regular expressions and you will be happy ever after” he added, also inviting the audience to download the slides of his presentation from the link he shared on the screen.

The immense potential of web scraping was introduced by Lindenberg who explained how “every site on the web is a potential database."  "When we look at a website we do not think of it like data, but it is. It is accessible to read but not for other types of analysis.” He offered a short overview of HTML tags and their meaning and how to navigate websites in the best way to extract information from them.

Friedrich Lindenberg (left) and Dan Nguyen (right)

Judging from the enthusiastic comments of the participants when shown what they can achieve with tools like ScraperWiki, the second day of the School of Data Journalism promises to be as successful and exciting. 

Resources:

• Full video recording of this workshop.
• Notes and tipsheets from the EJC/OKF School of Data Journalism workshops.