Did you know that new and student journalists can really stand out to potential employers if they develop proficiency in basic data skills?
Do you love sports and want to find a way into sports journalism?
Do you want to learn how to tell richer stories and create multiplatform content?
You bring the story ideas and let Google and Excel help you visualize it! This map – showing food violations at restaurants around Hofstra – was built in 3 minutes by a complete beginner (me!) using Google’s My Maps and a CSV file downloaded from New York’s public data site.
Data skills can also give you the confidence to experiment with story forms. Take a look at this map showing which zip codes support which baseball teams. Want to see more? Look at the sports stories on Chartball which all started out as datasets!
Interested in giving a voice to the voiceless? Look at this interactive map which vividly illustrates the history of collective violence against black communities in the US in a way that text alone can’t convey.
These are just some of the examples of the content you can create using basic data skills.
And the best thing? No math is needed and no coding is required. 🙂
