I pondered the fundamentals of good journalism in a Medium post this week. It got quite a bit of attention and there was some good conversation which I included at the end of the post. The conversation on Twitter was particularly interesting and helpful. I'm not sure that Josh Marshall would feel the same. He's been a busy man on Twitter defining an article on Talking Points Memo opining the "The Poverty of “Data Journalism” and the Irony of Gun Control". taking a swipe at 538 and in the process, data journalism. The resulting conversations are all interesting but the back and forth with Nate Silver which was bad tempered and revealing all at the same time. Hitching the issues of data journalism to gun control and vice versa was always going to be a hostage for fortune. It was also interesting to see Nate Silver come out with a thread suggesting the term "data journalism" has probably outlived its usefulness, Maybe, maybe not but as many respondents to Nate and Josh point out, it may be vital part of journalism's core mission. Marianne Bouchart's piece on Holding the powerful accountable, using data gives you some insight as to why.f You might also find an article from Open Knowledge that looks at bridging the gap between journalism and data analysis interesting as a slightly different perspective on what and how data journalism is perceived and practised.
In related way (related because wordclouds came up in the conversation around my post), a tweet by Mara Averick (@dataandme) caught my eye. She picks up on an article around the use of wordclouds - 7 Alternatives to Word Clouds for Visualizing Long Lists of Data - and the post and thread discussing its issues is an interesting take on method, viz and logical fallacy
Prospect Magazine have been running an interesting set of articles off the back of their Data as Infrastructure series. Leigh Dodd's introduction to communities and open data gives a good flavour of what to expect. I also enjoyed a look at the way Councils must meet their digitally-savvy residents’ demands. The supplement balances arguments for engagement against other pieces like Who benefits from smart cities but think I enjoyed it as much for the way it sat next to a thoughtful piece from City Lab on The Safe Way to Build a Smart City which looks at the experience of Seattle and the ways public institutions could be more proactive in releasing properly sanitized information.
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