Data Journalism Seminar

 

 

Bill Marsh/The New York Times   Source: Bank for International Settlements

 

> Presentation
> Schedule - videos of the presentations
> Workgroup - registration

 

Presentation

The opening up of public data (government and other groups’ databases) raises the question of who will process the data so they are actually "usable" by citizens and who will draw out the stories hidden behind the combination of different data sources.

Journalists are essential in doing so, for in addition to writing stories as they always have, they now have the opportunity to use databases to discover new stories and new perspectives. Of course this is possible only if these databases are available to society. In Spain, the on[+info]ly country in Europe with a population larger than one million that does not have a law granting access to information, this has not happened yet but progress is slowly being made.

In addition to gaining access to this information, journalists will face other challenges and will have to acquire new skills to be able to process and write stories based on databases. Journalists will have to learn to use and understand new programs capable of asking questions of databases, create data visualizations, and so on.  

In this session, the different phases involved in this type of research will be presented, from the initial access to databases to data processing and visualization of results. 

There will be two talks of 30' each one by Xaquín González Veira (The New York Times) y Annamarie Cumiskey (Bureau of Investigative Journalism) and will continue with brief presentacions from the rest of pannel as well as a round table between all the participants that will be open to the participation of the public.

Schedule

17:00h Seminar presentation [watch video]
17:15h Annamarie Cumiskey (Bureau of Investigative Journalism): Europe's Hidden Billions [watch video]
18:00h Xaquín González Veira (The New York Times): Data to The Power of Visuality [watch video]
18:45h Mar Cabra (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - ICIJ): Data journalism in Spain: can we make the dream come true? [watch video]
19:15h David Cabo (Pro Bono Público): Getting Data [watch video]
19:30h Break
19:45h Round table [watch video]

 

Workgroup

This session on data journalism is also an opportunity to present a new working group. This group aims to be a place where those interested in Data Journalism (journalists, programmers, visualizers...) have a place to share experiences and challenges that serve to enhance the exercise of this discipline in Spain.

The idea of creating a working group on data journalism arises from the desire to promote the exercise of this discipline in Spain, where this type of research is still rare. Fuelled by the success of other groups of data journalists in other parts of the world, this group was created to address the difficulties and obstacles which currently exist in Spain, keeping this type of research from appearing more often in our media.

The first obstacle in Spain is the lack of a law on access to public information. The policy on public information reuse is weak, unclear and varies according to authorities. Data journalism is based on database study and processing. Without them, research is clearly not possible.

Data journalism poses additional challenges for journalists who need to acquire new skills to be able to read, combine and extract information from databases.

Through the working group, our goal is to create a space to share tips, contacts and experiences to make these difficulties more bearable.

The core members of the workgroup are José Luis de Vicente, Victoria Anderica, David Cabo, Alberto Cairo, Pepe Cervera and Antonio Delgado.

Another objective is to create a meeting place where journalists, data visualizers, and all professionals interested in this new discipline can create synergies and thus obtain better results for their research.This group will be presented on 20 October during the Data Journalism Seminar to be held at Medialab Prado. Based on that meeting and the subsequent meeting to be held on 21 October, more detailed information will be published on how the group works.

Join the group

 

 *Translation by AICE Asociación de Intérpretes de Conferencia España