ABSTRACT
Data investigative reporters were instantly celebrated as the saviours of journalism in the early days of digital exposés into secret political fortunes. While journalists focused on data-rich celebrity exposés, less attention has been given to a recent humanitarian turn in other data news investigations. This chapter situates data-driven investigative news within the fast-changing communication networks that have accelerated the growth of popular social justice movements. The chapter is based on concepts of communication networks and journalists’ role orientations, meaning the ideas by which they legitimate their roles in society and make their work meaningful. It argues that investigative journalists have expanded the popular appeal of data stories into exposés of widespread environmental injustices, sexual assaults and the violations of civil rights.
