15. On Data And Journalism

Data Chatter

There is a conception, or misconception, that journalists are not good at maths. It is rather common to see newspaper headlines and graphics that make basic mathematical and logical errors.

On the other hand, in the last decade or so, we have seen a massive rise in “data journalism”. With more and more data being available, journalists are able to write stories exclusively based on data.

How do these two square off?

To answer this, we have Sukumar Ranganathan, editor in chief of the Hindustan Times. He was previously editor of Mint, of which he was one of the founding editors. It was while he was at Mint that he gave a big push to the then nascent field of “data journalism”, inviting writers such as HowIndiaLives, Rukmini S and myself to write data-backed pieces for Mint. He has previously worked in editorial leadership roles at The Hindu Businessline and Business Today.

Sukumar has degrees in chemical engineering, maths, and business administration, and is interested in mathematics, science and technology, the history of business, new media, and data-based political journalism. He reads and collects comic books and is an amateur birder. He tweets under the ID @HT_ed

Show Notes:

00:03:15: Are journalists really bad at maths?
00:16:30: Impact of bad data on public policy, and information theory
00:21:00: How data in journalism has changed in the last 20-25 years
00:23:00: The data journalism story
00:31:15: Judging a data story
00:45:30: Advice to budding data journalists

Data Chatter is a podcast on all things data. It is a series of conversations with experts and industry leaders in data, and each week we aim to unpack a different compartment of the "data suitcase".

The podcast is hosted by Karthik Shashidhar. He is a blogger, newspaper columnist, book author and a former data and strategy consultant. Karthik currently heads Analytics and Business Intelligence for Delhivery, one of India’s largest logistics companies.

You can follow him on twitter at @karthiks, and read his blog at noenthuda.com