How journalists can spot stories in data

Daniel Mark Harrison writes on his blog about how business reporters can increasingly find stories in data instead of having others point out the significance of the data.

Harrison writes, “The purpose of this post is not to reveal what the results are – that would be writing the story, then, after all. Rather, it is to illustrate how numbers can be assembled together to tell a different or uncommon story in a convincing and factually-sound way without a reporter having to reply on an analyst’s research report or take an economist’s word for what he is getting supplied with.

“It is noteworthy here how useful blogging comes in hand as a platform for annotation for more serious journalistic undertakings. Over time, through debate and back-and-forth analysis (as for the GDP post) a narrative begins to take shape in the form of something that resembles a scoop. That’s usually how great stories are reported out of data: it’s not a one-minute process at all.

“The great thing about blogs is how they display a whole range of current thoughts on one big page, meaning that nothing is left out of the corner of the eye – which is always where the scoops are sitting, just to the right or left of where you are directed to look (if they were right in front of you they would be reported already and if they are too hidden they are often not yet publishable due to insufficient data/sources etc. corroborating them – in other words, they are just a hunch at that stage.)

“As a journalist I am no different in also having found it productive browsing rival journalist’s blogs, since they are essentially in many cases open note-books.”

Read more here.