Data. It’s what the world is made up of — a fact that’s so obvious to me that I never considered the term ‘data journalism’ until recently. But the ideas are ones I’ve been living with for a long time.
I’ve been fascinated by the combination of journalism and technology for much of my life. Journalism is the passing on of information, and technology allows us to structure it in an organized way, so it may be analyzed.
As for me, I enjoy spending my days in languages both literary and computational. That’s what makes me a data journalist.
Data work, or computer-assisted reporting, isn’t just about using math and statistics to find stories — although that’s essential. It’s about how we perceive and restructure the information within our world. That means parsing the information others post online, creating our own data sets and just looking at life a little bit differently. You can make anything fit into cell A1 if you just adjust your perspective. And then the story just jumps out.
I don’t use the term computer-assisted reporting often, preferring to refer to it as “CAR” or “data,” and that’s for a reason. All reporting is computer-assisted at this point, it’s how people write and file their articles. Everyone’s researching with Google searches, and that’s not even broaching how crowdsourcing social networks is data. But looking at structuring information to find a story where there wasn’t one before, that strikes me as what CAR is all about. It’s so much deeper than knowing how to use Microsoft Word. There was a time when the term “computer-assisted reporting” made sense. But it seems to me that in the current time, it just doesn’t give credit to the specialization where credit is due.
CURIOSITY — No matter what happens to the media, journalism is about telling people’s stories. I believe the importance of awareness and an exchange of ideas will never go away. Conveying information about the world around me is what draws me to this profession, and communicating that information is what the media is all about.
TENACITY– Whether waiting outside an office for hours on end, sorting through copious documents, or attacking manuscripts and new programming languages with zeal, I do what it takes to get the job done. Every question, assignment or technique is surmountable.
PARTICIPATION FOR ALL — People from all walks of life must be involved in journalism– whether the story’s about them directly, or they want to add something to the conversation.
Some programming languages themselves are a relatively new journey for me, like Javascript and Python, others I’ve been playing with for a while, like Objective C and HTML/CSS (okay, that’s markup, but still necessary.) I enjoy indulging my journalistic curiosity by dabbling in all sorts of tools as they come up for various projects, and then using them when they’re relevant. But it’s important to note that even if you buy a 98-piece tool set, chances are the tool you need is the 99th item — which wasn’t included. With that in mind, I believe what’s important isn’t how many languages you know, but your ability to pick the right one, and pick it up quickly. Nevertheless, you’re better off having 98 tools than none at all, so I find myself drawn back to learning as much about programming as possible.
I will always believe that it is up to the journalists, in this era, to expand their definitions of how they report and convey news. Never before have we had access to so many people, so many places, and so much data! We can add to that information, and carefully analyze what’s already out there to find the truth. Corny though it may sound, the fun of deeply exploring our world is what motivates me to get up each morning.
On 03.02.10 Fresh eyes: what can journalists learn from a web coder? « Adam Westbrook said:
[...] Studying at Northwestern University’s School of Journalism, Michelle is on a mission to see how data and technology can come together to help the public. She has recently programmed her first app on Django; on her blog she unravels the mysteries of Computer Assisted Reporting and Data Visualisation, two of the most under valued parts of next-generation journalism. You can check out her portfolio here. Michelle’s ‘data-driven philosophy’ spells out what she’s all about. [...]
On 03.19.10 Dave said:
Should it be “They’re what the world is made up of”?
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On 03.19.10 Michelle Minkoff said:
Dave: I had the same question. Settled on “It’s,” because I thought the word “data” is like “group,” a singular term that refers to multiple objects. It’s an interesting question, though, and I’d love to see a definitive explanation either way.
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On 07.03.10 Charles said:
Although academics like to use “data” as a plural noun, the average person doesn’t. Academics have had “data” pounded into them as plural while others treat it according to English rules of grammar, not Latin. As you noted, it can be thought of as a “group” or a collective noun, such as family, which doesn’t take the plural in American English. However, Norman Gray, who knows more about its etymology, calls it a “singular mass noun” and convincingly, at least for me, argues that it is a singular noun. (See Data is a singular noun.)
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