- Quote: "Data journalism or data-driven journalism (DDJ) is journalism based on the filtering and analysis of large data sets for the purpose of creating or elevating a news story."
Understanding the ethical implications of data journalism and how to handle sensitive data.
Privacy: Understanding the individual's right to privacy when gathering, storing, and publishing data.
Accuracy and Fairness: Ensuring that data is accurate and fairly represented without being manipulated or distorted.
Transparency: Being transparent about sources and methods used in data gathering and analysis.
Conflicts of Interest: Recognizing and disclosing any conflicts of interest that may bias the reporting process.
Consent: Obtaining informed consent from sources before using their data in stories.
Data Protection and Security: Protecting data from theft, cyber-attacks, and unauthorized access.
Intellectual Property: Following copyright and intellectual property laws and obtaining necessary permissions for using data from other sources.
Sensitivity: Being sensitive to issues of race, gender, religion, and not to perpetuate harm or stereotypes.
Public Interest: Balancing the public right to know with the right to privacy and personal security.
Emergencies and Crises: Respecting privacy and dignity of victims, sympathizing with their pain, and acknowledging emergency situations.
Human Rights: Advocating for the protection of human rights and not using data in ways that violate them.
Accountability and Responsibility: Accepting accountability for ethical lapses, taking corrective action, and showing responsibility.
Privacy: Protecting the personal information of individuals who are the focus of data journalism stories, and handling such information carefully.
Confidentiality: Data journalists need to protect their sources, especially if there are risks of retaliation or retribution. Journalists should not disclose the identities of their sources without their consent.
Security: Due to the sensitivity of certain data, data journalists should maintain strict security protocols to prevent unauthorized access or theft.
Accuracy: Ensuring that data, statistics or facts used in a story are accurate and trustworthy.
Context: Providing context or historical background about the subject being covered and making sure that the true meaning of data is conveyed.
Subject sensitivity: Being mindful of how the publication of certain types of data may negatively impact individuals, communities, or groups.
Social Responsibility: Data journalists should report in a way that enlightens society on the issues being covered, and encourages responsible action.
Transparency: Data journalists should be transparent in their data selection, analysis, and methods used in presentation.
Conflict of Interest: Staying objective by eliminating any personal, business or political bias in the reporting process.
Ethical Data Collection: Data journalists should collect data lawfully and adhere to standards of fairness and respect for privacy.
Informed Consent: The importance of securing informed consent from data subjects is paramount to ethical data journalism.
Fairness: Ensuring that individuals or communities are not negatively portrayed, misrepresented, or targeted in data journalism stories.
- Quote: "Data journalism reflects the increased role of numerical data in the production and distribution of information in the digital era."
- Quote: "It involves a blending of journalism with other fields such as data visualization, computer science, and statistics, 'an overlapping set of competencies drawn from disparate fields'."
- Quote: "Many data-driven stories begin with newly available resources such as open source software, open access publishing and open data, while others are products of public records requests or leaked materials."
- Quote: "This approach to journalism builds on older practices, most notably computer-assisted reporting (CAR) a label used mainly in the US for decades."
- Quote: "Data-driven journalism strives to reach new levels of service for the public, helping the general public or specific groups or individuals to understand patterns and make decisions based on the findings."
- Quote: "The findings from data can be transformed into any form of journalistic writing."
- Quote: "Visualizations can be used to create a clear understanding of a complex situation."
- Quote: "Furthermore, elements of storytelling can be used to illustrate what the findings actually mean, from the perspective of someone who is affected by a development."
- Quote: "This connection between data and story can be viewed as a 'new arc' trying to span the gap between developments that are relevant, but poorly understood, to a story that is verifiable, trustworthy, relevant, and easy to remember."
- Quote: "The process builds on the growing availability of open data that is freely available online and analyzed with open source tools."
- Quote: "Data-driven journalism strives to reach new levels of service for the public, helping the general public or specific groups or individuals to understand patterns and make decisions based on the findings."
- Quote: "Other labels for partially similar approaches are 'precision journalism', based on a book by Philipp Meyer, published in 1972, where he advocated the use of techniques from social sciences in researching stories."
- Quote: "Telling stories based on the data is the primary goal."
- Quote: "This approach to journalism builds on older practices, most notably computer-assisted reporting (CAR) a label used mainly in the US for decades."
- Quote: "Many data-driven stories begin with newly available resources such as open source software."
- Quote: "Data-driven journalism might help to put journalists into a role relevant for society in a new way."
- Quote: "Furthermore, elements of storytelling can be used to illustrate what the findings actually mean, from the perspective of someone who is affected by a development."
- Quote: "Visualizations can be used to create a clear understanding of a complex situation."
- Quote: "Many data-driven stories begin with newly available resources such as open access publishing."