A presentation for journalism students explores the idea that there are great stories to be found in data, numbers, datasets.

1. Data-Driven Journalism Mindy McAdams University of Florida

2. What is “a great story”? Convinces us of something Makes us question our assumptions Compels us to action Enlightens us: Brings a new realization Touches us: Connects to our humanity

3. Can numbers tella great story?

5. usatoday.com Religions: Percentages for the complete United States

6. usatoday.com Religions: Percentages for only California

7. usatoday.com Religions: Percentages for only Texas

8. usatoday.com Religions: “Do you think there is a hell?”

9. usatoday.com Religions: “Do you think there is a heaven?”

10. Great data visualizationtells a great story.

13. Finding the story in data Data can be boring — if you don’t know what you’re looking for In raw form, numbers and words lack meaning A dataset is a bucket full of numbers “There are stories in that bucket” —Nathan Yau, Flowing Data

14. nytimes.com

15. nytimes.com

16. Data visualization graphicscreate a picturethat makes clearwhat the numbers mean.

17. All data presentations are NOT equal

18. nytimes.com

19. nytimes.com

20. Visualizations allow us to understand and process enormous amounts of information quicklybecause it is all represented in a single imageor animation. 7 Things You Should Know About Data Visualization

21. nytimes.com Movie box office revenues, January 1986 to February 2008. Vertical shows weekly revenue amount. Horizontal shows how long the movie ran in theaters.

22. Data visualization includes: Design Organization Fact checking Detective work Research —Nathan Yau, Flowing Data

23. Data visualization is the graphical representation of information.

24. 4 common types of data graphics Maps Show patterns that occur in geographic space Bar charts Show simple numerical comparisons Line graphs Show continuous change over time Pie charts Show proportional differences See: Visualization Options Available in Many Eyes

25. washingtonpost.com Map shows all public schools in Washington, D.C.

26. washingtonpost.com Map shows all schools where at least 60 percent of students passed the 2006 D.C. math exam.

27. washingtonpost.com Bar chart: U.S. service members killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, 2001-2006.

28. nytimes.com Line graph compares time progression of present crisis with average of all past crises and with five worst worst crises (July 18, 2008)

29. Pie chart: FeedBurner.com stats showing which RSS readers sent traffic to the blog Teaching Online Journalism in 2007

30. Where to begin? Use Microsoft Excel Collect data and learn to sort it Make friends with a graphic designer Take a computer programming class Take a statistics class Take a geography class where you can learn to draw maps

31. Links.http://delicious.com/macloo/data+journalism

32. Data-Driven Journalism Resources used for this presentation include Great Data Visualization Tells a Great Story, by Nathan Yau, and 7 Things You Should Know About Data Visualization