Let the numbers talk: Reporting on the economic impact of refugees
A close-up on an Editors Lab prototype built by RTVS (Slovakia)
Can data be used to create empathy? The team from RTVS came out on top at the Česká Televize Editors Lab in Prague last November with their successful attempt at creating a data journalism piece that does just that. They aim to teach Slovaks about the real economic impact of opening their doors to migrants and refugees. Spoiler: it wouldn’t be as bad as some might think.
The team built “Refugee spending and revenues”, a webpage to show the economic impact of a refugee living in Slovakia at the Editors Lab in Prague last November. Users are invited to compare their monthly earnings and expenses with the 40-cent per-day stipend a refugee would receive from the government. The prototype webpage illustrates how long a refugee would have to save in order to buy certain products in Slovakia — such as shoes, clothing, a car, a phone—versus how long it would take the user to save for the same essential items.
“We then compared how long it would take a refugee to give back all these spendings following successful integration,” explained RTVS journalist Zuzana Hanzelova. “We picked several occupations, minimum wage and average wage. According to each income, the webpage’s interactive features show how many years a refugee would have to work in order to return their expenses to the economy.”
The RTVS team’s webpage also compared costs associated with refugees to the annual costs for state expenses such as prisons or healthcare costs for smokers.
The jury found the project’s potential scale impressive, as it could be adapted for other countries whose populations share similar concerns about the economic impact of refugees. They were also impressed by its audience focus and its potential to build empathy. According to the jury:
The fears of the population about the integration of refugees in their home countries are rarely well addressed in media. They are often overlooked or dismissed as unsympathetic or racist by media appealing to the compassion of its readers. On the other hand, these fears can manifest themselves in irrational reporting fuelled by right-wing media exploiting its readership’s anxieties. What is different with the RTVS project is that it addresses its readers’ concern about the potential economic repercussions of refugees integration in a precise and dispassionate manner. It gives its readers the right tools to evaluate whether their fears are rationally grounded.
On empathy the jury commented:
This project also strikes an interesting balance between giving its readers the quantitative indicators enabling them to rationally assess the situation and providing them with a personalised experience that builds empathy with refugees. Inviting readers to compare their monthly spendings with those of a refugee is an effective way to help them identify with refugees whose experiences are otherwise un-relatable to their owns.
Some graphics have been improved since the hackathon last November, but the team is waiting for a stronger digital platform for their organisation to take the project further.
See the prototype: Link to project (4MB HTML file)
This prototype earned RTVS the chance to compete in last June’s Editors Lab Final, which challenged teams to build a newsgame. RTVS kept to the theme of reporting on refugees with their game “What would you take?” which earned them a third-place finish.
