Sensors are a journalist’s new best friend.
Your cell phone, your laptop, GPS devices, and even grocery store scanners collect information without us even knowing. A whole industry of data science has been booming as people try to harness and interpret that information. When done accurately, these statistics can tell stories — and journalists are just the people to tell them.
So what are sensors?
According to “Defining The Sensor Society” by Mark Andrejevic and Mark Burdon,
“Sensors can include any device that automatically captures and records data that can then be transmitted, stored, and analyzed.”
So it could be almost anything electronic. Even e-readers would count because they collect data on what users are reading and when they’re reading it.
How can journalists use sensors?
Since sensors are such a large umbrella group, so are the ways they can be used.
Using drones, journalists can put sensors in the air. They could use geographic information systems to track the progress of wildfires, measure radiation from a compromised power plant, and look at barometric pressure during a hurricane.
Sensors could be as easy or as complicated as a journalist could imagine. Organizations like WNYC use crowd sourcing to get free data from their participants. Journalists could also just ask for data from companies who already collect it. Depending on the company, journalists could get this information for free or might have to pay to have access to it.
The one thing journalists would have to be concerned about is interpreting the data correctly and providing context in the story. It’s easy to misunderstand numbers, especially if you don’t have a background in math.
That’s where the learning comes in. Journalists could watch YouTube videos on how to use data analystics programs like R Studio or Python. They can also take courses from local colleges. Or if the station has money, they could hire outside help.
Here’s a sensor example.
National Geographic took sensor use to the next level with their “Tracking Ivory” project. Investigative reporter Bryan Christy wanted to understand how ivory goes from being on a dead elephant to the black markets that sell to countries like China. He would use a sensor hidden within a fake tusk to find out.
To get the project going, they had to hire some experts.
George Dante was the taxidermist hired to make the fake tusk. In the video below, you can see how much effort it took to make everything perfect — perfect enough to trick poachers.
They also had to hire Quintin Kermeen, animal tracker to manage the GPS tracker. The team didn’t use any old GPS. This one had to be able to transmit without being hindered by dead zones, a one year battery capability, a special satellite transceiver and receiver, and a temperature sensor.
John Flaig is a specialist in near-space, balloon-based photography. It was his job to keep track of the tusk movements. They used Google Earth as a tool to help with the monitoring.
Because they had so much help, Christy didn’t need any special skills to work on a sensors project. Before he was a reporter, he was a lawyer, not a data scientist. Christy just needed to be able to know how to tell the story.
The team did run into trouble with the law, but not over their sensors.
While at Dar es Salaam’s international airport in Tanzania, Christy was stopped when the x-ray scanners showed something suspicious in his bags. The tusks Dante had made were so well done they tricked the airport’s wildlife expert. Christy spent the night at the airport.
The next day, diplomats from the U.S Embassy were able to convince Tanzanian officials that Christy was a journalist doing a project rather than a smuggler.
Once Christy was able to plant the fake tusk with one of his contacts, he was able to create a story out of the data collected from the tusk’s sensors. This story was printed in National Geographic’s magazine, made into a visual tracking map, and a picture gallery with a voice-over.
Although not every news organization could afford a project like this, it shows what sensors are really capable of. It’s a great example of how sensor data can make a story more interesting and gives a story credibility. For readers, being able to see where an actual fake tusk went through the black market is more compelling than just saying ivory trade is an issue.
Sensors are the way of the future for storytelling, and stories like this are just the start.
