Journalism in the age of data

I really liked this video! Data visualization is something I’ve recently gained an interest in. I want to go into journalism professionally but want to combine it with my interactive skills, so I think this could be something I could potentially get into.

Personally, I think data visualization is going to become even more crucial to the journalism industry. It’s no lie that people are becoming more visual. In our theory class, I did my presentation on the English language and how it is becoming replaced by “TextSpeak.” Basically, there’s evidence that shows that people are getting worse at reading and writing and because of our short attention spans due to TextSpeak, we don’t read long articles as much anymore. It’s sad, but it’s also a good opportunity for data visualization to play a role in the journalism world. People may skim over an article, but that can really see what that article is saying through a graph or a chart. It’s attractive, attention-grabbing and appeals to our visual nature.

I thought it was interesting too how they were saying that anyone who goes into this field should have knowledge in statistics too. Makes sense, just something I never really thought of. If I do go into this field, I guess I need to brush up on my statistics! (Ensue moment of panic now…)