Why we’re combining our data and interactive teams to form a single data and digital storytelling desk
As the data and interactive teams at The Times and The Sunday Times have become more technically proficient a huge crossover of skills between the two has taken place.
A decision was recently taken to combine them, creating one multi-skilled group focused on bringing stories to life for our digital readers. Here’s why.
It better reflects what we do, but also why we do it
Interactivity is just one way that you can visually enhance an article and the team has the ability to tell stories in a number of ways. Digital storytelling better reflects this. We don’t want to be defined by a medium, but by what we can offer a project, from charts to maps or bespoke, personalised experiences.
However for The Times and The Sunday Times, creating a team focused solely on digital storytelling is more significant than that: it is another step towards implementing a reader-first approach and an important development for two newspapers with a 400-year history.
Working closely with the audience development team, this new desk will shape ideas using information we know about our readers and the wider goals the papers want to achieve. The aims for an article in sport are different to news, arts, business or travel, for example, and from length to tone this should be reflected in the way the story is told.
We want to ensure our digital subscribers are engaging with our journalism in the best possible format, whether that be reading, watching or interacting with a story. The data and digital storytelling team will be given the time and space to make this happen.
We can be more ambitious with projects we take on
Combining the teams has brought together not just a wide range of skills (scraping, statistical modelling, D3, spatial analysis) but a knowledge of subject areas (politics, sport, consumer journalism) to make our work as insightful and impactful as possible across different sections of the website.
We now also have consistent standards for data analysis. Everyone is using the same programming language (R), which means we can make sure our findings are reproducible before publishing a story.
The journey from data to visuals is a continuous one
Graphic representation is an important step in our data analysis, and the interpretation of numbers underpins the majority of our visuals.
Having the same people working on both means we’re able to consider the visual approach from the start of a story or investigation, which gives us more time to choose the best format for readers.
One team also allows those who specialise in both fields to work in close proximity and learn from each other. This means improved stories: our investigations are better presented, our visual projects use better data and are more agenda-driven.
Things are simpler for the newsroom
In the past few years reporters have been unsure as to which team they should turn to when they have a data-led or visual idea, with the fact that one can often lead to the other only heightening the confusion.
Now it’s clear who to talk to, with the broad range of skills we have in the team allowing us to consider the diversity of mediums available before we begin a project.
