#112 Data Journalism in the Age of COVID-19

During Data Literacy Month, we shared how data journalists curate and distill data stories to the wider public. Since 2020, Data Journalism has risen both in significance and visibility. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, data journalists have been instrumental in keeping the public informed by investigating, challenging, interpreting, and explaining complex datasets. In this episode, Betsy Ladyzhets joins the show to talk about the state of Data Journalism today, and shares from her experience as a data journalist Betsy is an independent science, health, and data journalist focused on COVID-19 and Founder of the COVID-19 Data Dispatch, an independent publication providing updates and resources on public COVID-19 data. She is also currently working as a Senior Journalism Fellow with the Documenting COVID-19 project at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation and MuckRock. Her work has been featured in Science News, FiveThirtyEight, MIT Tech Review, and the Covid Tracking Project. Throughout the show, we discuss the importance of letting data shape a narrative, what characteristics of traditional journalism are needed for data journalists, the best practices for delivering effective data stories, how the rise of AI and data visualization are impacting data journalism, and much more. Links shared during the episode: Data Sonification The COVID-19 Data Dispatch The Data Visualization Society Learning on DataCamp? Take part in this week’s XP-challenge: http://www.datacamp.com/promo/free-week-xp-challenge-2022