Data journalism serves as a cornerstone in data acquisition, analysis, dissemination, advocacy, and public education, among other crucial functions. From the readings and recordings, a robust case emerges for data journalism’s pivotal role and its responsibility to the public in the modern information age.
Methodological Contributions to Research
Kevin Guyan’s “Queer Data” raises pertinent questions concerning various study designs, encompassing methodologies and data collection tools. These salient questions underline the potential for researchers to inadvertently introduce biases, particularly against minority and marginalized populations. Beyond spotlighting these methodological limitations, data journalists champion novel approaches to data collection and analysis, often breaking away from academic conventions. These avant-garde approaches establish fresh methodological avenues for comprehensively understanding our world. Moreover, they set an innovative precedent for defining research methodologies, thus empowering researchers and data enthusiasts. Nikki’s work in “Data Set Failures and Intersectional Data” further advances methodological contributions by exploring intersectionality and novel approaches tailored to specific research contexts.
Facilitating Data Access for the Public
Alex Howard’s discourse on “Data Journalism in the Second Machine Age” artfully showcases how data journalism creatively sources, analyzes, and disseminates data. This creative process encompasses digitizing paper records into searchable online archives and employing data-driven methods to illuminate intricate societal issues. It spans concerns such as air pollution, corruption, food security, national security, and healthcare, delivering them to the public with flair and impact. This not only educates the public but also serves as a potent advocacy tool.
Advocacy and Ensuring Accountability
Inextricably linked to data accessibility, data journalism plays a pivotal role in advocacy and fostering accountability. By uncovering concealed issues and underscoring those previously disregarded, data journalists mobilize the necessary attention for policy shifts and concrete actions. A striking instance is the controversial publication of personally identifiable information about gun owners by New York-based Journal News, which, despite causing public outrage, catalyzed substantial policy alterations in New York State’s gun laws. Additional examples from renowned sources like Wikileaks, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, La Nacion, and more covering topics like corruption, ambulance response times, fundraising, serve as invaluable assets for advocacy and structural accountability.
The Dark Side of Data Journalism
Nonetheless, data journalism is not immune to ethical dilemmas. As illuminated in the podcast “Becoming Data: Data and Humanity (A Data & Society Podcast) Episode 1,” data journalists may sometimes unintentionally publish information about vulnerable groups, inadvertently perpetuating oppression within societal power dynamics. A concerning example revolves around the publication of eviction data, which landlords and real estate agents could exploit when selecting tenants, potentially perpetuating inequality and structural injustices that society seeks to alleviate.
The discourse above demonstrates that data journalism is an indispensable societal cornerstone, extending its influence across data utilization, accessibility, advocacy, and accountability. While its capacity to empower and enlighten is profound, data journalism must tread carefully, acknowledging the complex terrain of ethical responsibilities and the potential consequences that could either uplift or harm the public it serves.
Paul,
I enjoyed the comprehensive nature of your post – you dive into quite a number of salient issues and it was interesting to read your perspectives on the materials we read, watched, and listened to for this week.
You note, rightly so, that “data journalists may sometimes unintentionally publish information about vulnerable groups, inadvertently perpetuating oppression within societal power dynamics.” I, too, pondered this subject for a while. On the one hand, data about the lived experiences of marginalized groups is essential to our understanding of them as a literate and a data-dense society. We make sense of the world through numbers and through stories, and the written word, in our culture at least, in large part decides what gets written as history and what gets omitted.
I am wondering, now, about the duty of data journalists to future generations. In this case, publishing data about vulnerable groups is clearly a violation of their rights and their trust, however, if said data is anonymized and instead serves as a record of a certain group, their contemporaneous lived experiences, and their histories, is it not beneficial to future generations to have free and open access to these datasets? I know we live in a culture of publish-or-perish. I am wondering if certain pieces of data journalism can be a journalist’s life’s work, to be published posthumously or in the future when all participants can no longer be harmed by the release of the data set. Yet, on the other hand, we have a moral obligation to improve the living experiences and structures of power and dominance for historically marginalized populations now. It feels strangely like a double-edged sword.
Thank you again for your thoughts.
Caitlin
Caitlin,
I fully agree to your proposed solution of anonymizing data subjects, especially the vulnerable, to ensure that publications about them are not used as instruments of targeting them for further oppression. I think this has been the practice with the majority of published work. The challenge, however, is that, whereas it might be easier to anonymize an individual, it is not always the case with a group.