ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the data journalism process by breaking it down into four consecutive steps: determining a data need, accessing and evaluating data, transforming and analyzing data and communicating data. It discusses secondary data sources like government agencies and research studies, as well as primary data that journalists can compile. The chapter also discusses key questions that journalists should consider before creating their own datasets. It describes some of the key transformation and analysis tasks that can be completed in Excel. The chapter examines four fundamental but powerful data transformation techniques: grouping, calculating, sorting and recoding. It offers recommendations for communicating data with clarity and precision. Data visualizations need to represent data with accuracy. News audience members usually have little context for comprehending the data being presented to them, or appreciating the data’s importance. Sorting data using the values of one column can be a useful strategy for checking if the data contain any trends.
