Contemporary data journalism goes far beyond the old-time beat reporter who would review the daily police reports. Technology is obviously transforming the retrieval and analysis of information. The authors, journalists and professors at a Canadian university, provide an excellent introduction to the technology tools of data journalism.
After an introductory chapter, the following chapter provides a discussion of online and open data. While well done from a technology perspective, there is no specific mention of the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), enacted in 1967, and how to make FOIA requests, although the authors do state that “there are dozens of open-records laws in the world” and provide a broad approach to records requests. Certainly, from a student’s perspective, more detail and a walk-through in this chapter would be desirable. The authors do provide examples of US portals such as Chicago’s crime database and US Department of Labor mine accidents, as well as other non-US illustrations. A list of steps to take when working with any dataset is well done.
A chapter addresses what to do when data is not conveniently available; it provides a useful discussion of the standard excuses for not providing data and appropriate responses to these excuses. The heart of the book is a unit of five chapters on analyzing data. This material addresses spreadsheets, working with databases, an introduction to maps, geographic information system (GIS) programs, and visualizing data. “Advanced Topics” provides information concerning web scraping and web development, with a good discussion of the technology. A concluding chapter introduces incorporating data journalism into traditional reporting.
Chapters begin with a list of “what you will learn” and conclude with “study questions and exercises” and notes to other articles and materials, and sometimes a further reading list. There is a concluding glossary and comprehensive index. The authors provide tutorials for all chapters on a companion website. The materials are practical and current, and it is clearly appropriate as a textbook for a course that aims to combine technology and journalism.
