Technology for writers: Prime numbers
Piktochart
Researching accurate data and presenting it in easy-to-understand format are essential skills for the modern journalist. Chris Glithero helps you find the words and pictures to match the numbers
We live in an age in which unparalleled levels of data are available, on everything from behaviour, geography and populations, to consumer behaviour, history, literature and finance. Numbers upon numbers upon numbers, all with their own story just waiting to be told. And if that doesn’t excite you as a writer then you’ve clearly never heard of data journalism. Read on to learn more about the beauty of data, and how you can uncover it in your work…
So what is data journalism? It is quite simply, the practice of using data to tell a story. The data in question could be anything from reported burglary rates in your local area, to the number of recorded finds of Roman coins by area, or the incidence of specific diseases in certain countries. Once you’ve got the data at your fingertips, it’s up to you to identify the most compelling stories within it.
In practice, data journalism is highly visual, and uses images, charts, ‘infographics’, maps and words to convey illuminating statistics.
I’m a writer, what do I need data for?
As a writer of nonfiction, whether of books, print articles, blogs or anything else, your goal is inevitably to get a point across, assert a viewpoint, explain something or to tell a compelling reallife story. By finding, interrogating and presenting data, you can add some real oomph and substance to your work. Plus, exploring data can be a whole lot of fun. With data journalism you can: