Feature writers talk about character development, story structure and style. We rarely talk about data. Other journalists have used data to engage readers and personalize news through interactive maps and games, as well as tools to make the news more relevant to people’s lives. Why aren’t we doing it too?
The answer lies somewhere between fear and loathing. As storytellers, we’re supposed to construct an experience for our readers. We don’t want to worry about crunching code, not while we’re busy immersing ourselves in our subjects’ lives, cataloguing nothing more technological than heartbreak.
But I believe stories need to match their media. As media – and media habits – change, so should story. More people get their news online than ever before. More are using mobile devices. I believe stories viewed on screens should be written shorter and more creatively. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how journalists can integrate data into their stories more seamlessly.
“Everything is data,” said Adrian Holovaty, a programmer-journalist and the founder of EveryBlock told me. “It’s not just the clichés, like crime and public records stuff.”
At the Poynter KSU Media Ethics Workshop yesterday, Holovaty explained how journalists are now using data differently. Instead of simply reporting it in a traditional print story, they’re turning it into a product that’s “not meant to tell a story but to improve your life.”
EveryBlock, for instance, is “a news feed for your block.” It includes regularly updated information on crime and property records, as well as restaurant reviews and blog posts. Holovaty says the biggest complaint from users is the lack of context – there’s no human reporter filtering through the feeds and telling you what it all means. It’s possible to look for “blips” across the data – recurring events, such as a rash of bike thefts in a particular neighborhood, for instance – and craft reports on the Why (not just the other four W’s there now). Holovaty said they haven’t done it yet because every database is flawed. Some crime entries aren’t geocoded, for instance. Others are downright wrong because of some human error.
Instead of providing a traditional reporter function – the authority telling people what all the data adds up to – he sees EveryBlock as being more of a community thing, and the next phase is getting more community involvement. He envisions everything from Craigslist-type posts to forum-like comments where someone could ask, “Did anyone hear those gunshots?”
I admire what Holovaty’s done, but I’d hate to see a data-versus-story debate come out of the industry’s new emphasis on interactive journalism. “Get rid of your laptops,” Gay Talese told college students at Indiana University this week. “Go out and see the world.” I think an anti-technology mindset is as dangerous to the future of feature journalism as a data-rules one. Feature writers should think about the computer as another tool to enhance our storytelling, like the audio recorder did. A big part of what journalists do is provide context and relay experience. E.B. White said, “Don’t write about Man; write about a man.” The numbers coming out of Haiti after the earthquake saddened us but not as much as the stories behind the numbers did. The world needs both kinds of reporting. We’re just not used to seeing them in the same packages.
I haven’t found many examples of data being innovatively integrated into story, though more news organizations are putting data and story side by side. The New York Times paired a graphic representation of the American Time Use Survey with an article about the same subject. The Columbus Dispatch personalizes Death Perceptions, a multimedia presentation about people who confront death daily, by including a searchable database on Ohio death statistics.
Do you know of more adventurous integrations of data and storytelling? I’d love to hear about them. Let’s keep talking about how data can enhance – not replace – feature stories.
This article originally appeared on my blog, InspireMeJProf
