How and why you should do data journalism

One of the big areas of focus for technology companies over the past year has been “big data” — in other words, the idea that there can be a lot of value in finding patterns in the massive quantities of user data and other information that a business generates. This has a corollary in journalism too: namely, the growing realization that there is a lot of value in finding patterns in news-related information. This weekend saw the launch of an e-book that could be a useful resource for anyone planning to explore that field: The Data Journalism Handbook. Released at the 2012 International Journalism Festival in Italy, the handbook is a collection of testimonials, tips and in-depth case studies about data-oriented journalism — and fittingly enough, the information was crowdsourced from dozens of leading practitioners of the craft, from the BBC and the Financial Times to the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times (both of whom have teams of developer/journalists who work on data-related projects). The book is being made available free of charge online under a Creative Commons license, although a printed version is also in the works from O’Reilly Media.