Unravelling data journalism. A study of data journalism practice in British newsrooms

Abstract

The centrality of data in modern society has prompted a need to examine the increasingly powerful role of data brokers and their efforts to quantify the world. Practices and methods such as surveillance, biometrics, automation, data creeping, or profiling consumer behaviour, all offer opportunities and challenges to news reporting. Nonetheless, as most professional journalists display a degree of hesitancy towards numbers and computational literacy, there are only limited means to investigate the power dynamics underpinning data. This article discusses the extent to which current data journalism practices in the UK employ databases and algorithms as a means of holding data organisations accountable. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with data journalists, data editors and news managers working for British mainstream media, the study looks at how data journalism operates within the news cycle of professional newsrooms in the UK. Additionally, it examines the innovations data journalism brings to storytelling, newsgathering, and the dissemination of news.