6 ways of communicating data journalism (The inverted pyramid of data journalism part 2)

OJB – By Paul Bradshaw

Last week I published an inverted pyramid of data journalism which attempted to map processes from initial compilation of data through cleaning, contextualising, and combining that. The final stage – communication – needed a post of its own, so here it is.

UPDATE: Now in Spanish too.

Below is a diagram illustrating 6 different types of communication in data journalism. (I may have overlooked others, so please let me know if that’s the case.)

Modern data journalism has grown up alongside an enormous growth in visualisation, and this can sometimes lead us to overlook different ways of telling stories involving big numbers. The intention of the following is to act as a primer for ensuring all options are considered.

1. Visualisation

Visualisation is the quickest way to communicate the results of data journalism: free tools such as Google Docs allow it with a single click; more powerful tools like Many Eyes only require the user to paste their raw data and select from a range of visualisation options. [Read more…]