Success & Sanity in Data Journalism

Join your fellow data visualizers on Tuesday September 27th at Chief (1800 Massachusetts Ave NW) for How to Succeed in Data Driven Journalism without Going Crazy. Our guest speaker for September will be trans-Atlantic data journalism rock star, Mark McDonald. Mark’s presentation will focus on the data process in journalism, and how the information age has transformed our abilities in storytelling and reporting. I will also appeal to journalists to utilize the big data tools in their work as much as possible, leading to a better informed public.

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Agenda

6:30 - 7:10 - Networking

7:10 – 7:20 – Introductions and Sponsors

7:20 – 8:20 – Mark McDonald

8:20 - 8:40 – Q & A for Mark McDonald

8:40 - Data Drinks

More about Mark McDonald

A 30 year veteran of the news industry, Mark has defined his career as a news producer by working at the highest levels of international news, starting at the BBC TV News production in the 80s, Mark served the BBC as a World Duty Editor, and in the field in both Western and Eastern Europe, and extensively throughout North and South America. While working for the BBC his work included coverage, both short and long-form, of international politics, five U.S. Presidential elections, battlefield conflict, diplomacy, the United Nations and its agencies, as well as natural and human tragedies.

In the 90s Mark made the intrepid voyage across the Atlantic via jet airplane to hold senior management positions with the BBC’s New York Bureau before transferring to US Public Radio, serving senior positions at WNYC in New York, where he built a stellar reporting team that won the Edward R. Murrow Award and the DuPont Columbia Award for investigative reporting. After Mark left New York he became Programming Director WAMU in Washington, DC, in this position he brought podcasting, internet streaming, and digital content management to WAMU, expanding the station’s range and increasing the listing base dramatically.

Mark is the founder and CEO of Birkdale Media, a boutique media and public relations firm; Birkdale specializes in media coaching, interview preparation, public relations for individuals and for corporations.

Above all else, Mark is a champion for data and data visualization in the newsroom and on the air. We conducted an interview with him and were really impressed by the passion he displayed for Data Viz – full text of the interview below:

1. What got you into data visualization and how do you think data visualization has enhanced your profession?

Mark: TV and Video Graphics have become so much more sophisticated in the digital age that they can be designed much more quickly, easily, and contain much more useful information for viewers, helping producers to explain complex stories and issues, and put them into better context than ever before. The internet means blogs, news-sites, etc. can contain way more vital information and background than they did before - and many organizations are utilizing data to enhance their story-telling, provide background, history, and further detail.

2. You worked for the BBC, how do you think that working for an international news agency affected your views on data?

Mark: In my day (80's and 90's) a sophisticated graphic could take days, even weeks to assemble to be inserted into a news report. New technology speeds this process meaning producers can make much better use of graphics on video and on the web.

3. How do you see data visualization shaping the future of news media or vice versa how do you see news media shaping the path of data visualization?

Mark: It opens up vast new possibilities for journalism. Better analysis, better explanations and details in investigative work (being able to collate and display complex documents, and show how they relate to each other, for instance). The news media in turn can drive the quest for big data using the Freedom of Information legislation on complex stories and issues and making it public utilizing graphics and big data.

4. How do we make the news - print, media, digital, etc.- Great Again?

Mark: By using our imagination about how to tell stories and raise important issues in a more captivating and compelling way, rather than feeding the public cheap consumer-driven news which is often second or third hand.

5. What international news story from the past decade could have had a different outcome if data visualization was better used in covering it?

Mark: Resolution from any conflict zone you care to mention - by using big data to report it more accurately (Iraq, for example) thus raising public awareness.

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