Day 19 — Finding data stories
In order for it to be a data story, it must have:
Some Data
Journalists collect evidence, but when people talk about “data journalism” they usually mean numbers. These numbers might be:
- Collected by someone else and published, in which case you just have to sort through it to find your story. (see list of resources below)
- Collected by someone else and not published, in which case you might have to make a public records request.
Philadelphia open records requests instructions
- Not collected or available, in which case you’ll have to collect the data yourself. You might do this on your own or through crowdsourcing.
A Story
Like everything we do here, you must tell a story, preferably one that gives people (democratic) power through information. Journalists seek to illuminate aspects of power, policy, ideology, and whatever else people are interested in. Watch this for:
- Representing numbers visually
- Putting numbers into context
- Finding the story that the numbers tell
Additional training
A handbook written by data journalists all over the world.
The national association of journalists focused on data and investigative reporting:
Finding data
A list of resources you can use to find data already available online:
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
And portal.state.pa.us, though it doesn’t seem to be working right now.