Category Archives: Data journalism

data visualization, interactive maps, timeline, coding

Essential coding skills for journalism students

A conversation around this recurring question sprang up on Twitter on Oct. 21, 2013, sparked by an article that ran on The Atlantic’s website. Continue reading

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Basic web scraping and data visualization using Google Spreadsheets

Google Spreadsheets provides a free, one-stop solution for journalists and researchers to retrieve tabular data from a web page, visualize the data, and embed the visualizations in a news or research report.

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A quick guide on web scraping: Why and how

Web scraping, which is the collection and cleaning of online data, is the first step in any data-driven project. Here’s a short video that explains what scraping is, and how to create automated scraping jobs using a digital tool.

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Essential data journalism skills: A conversation with three data journalists

I had an informative Twitter conversation with three data journalists about the skills needed for a journalism graduate to land a data reporting job, how J-Schools can teach data skills, and how to learn those skills.

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Why data visualization matters?

Data visualization reveals unnoticed information, especially in large data sets; gives answers faster; and helps journalists investigate cause-effect relationship.

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A color palette optimized for data visualization

If you don’t like the default colors in data visualizations such as bar chart or pie chart, I suggest you check out a color palette that is designed for use in data visualization.

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3 ingredients of effective data visualization: audience, message, the right chart

The purpose of data visualization is to convey messages, not to awe audiences with spectacular visuals. A data journalist, or anyone who works with data visualization, needs to know who the target audience is, what information the audience wants, and … Continue reading

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How to maintain an interactive data chart with infogr.am

If you need to create an interactive data chart for your site and periodically update the chart, a simple solution is to create the chart with infogr.am and embed it on your site; when it’s time for updates, go edit … Continue reading

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What is a “data visualization tool”? An intro for journalism students and rookie journalists

“Data visualization tool” is a term that goes hand in hand with data journalism; but some students and maybe some rookie journalists are not quite clear what it is and does. A data visualization tool makes it possible and easy … Continue reading

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Google Maps Engine Lite (beta) Review: It can use a lot of improvements

The newly launched Google Maps Engine Lite (beta) is touted as an upgrade to the popular My Maps, but it is not a data journalism tool I want to recommend for digital news reporting and classroom teaching – at least … Continue reading

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