“Data journalists are the new information’s rock stars”
“Covid-19 pandemic has probably been the first data-driven event in history. Since March 2020 we have all been inundated with numbers. Data has become essential to follow and understand the evolution of the pandemic, it has influenced policies and it has affected our risk perception and our day-to-day actions. Data journalists, who used to work with data on a daily basis, now suddenly took centre stage”.
Some people say that, with Covid-19, data reporters have become the rock stars in the world of media. Of all possible stages, the one that Anna Lombardi steps onto every day is certainly one of the world’s most prestigious. She is a physicist by training, with a PhD from the University of Lyon. Her thesis was recognized with the 2013 Saint Gobain award from the French Society of Physics (SFP). After completing the “Franco Prattico” Master’s in Science Communication at the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Anna joined the editorial staff at The Times & Sunday Times in 2018.
Today, she works as a data journalist on the newspaper’s Data and Digital Storytelling team: “I hunt out figures and percentages, study them, try to understand what stories they can tell us, in a whole host of different fields, from the economy to politics, from science to sport. It is a fascinating work of investigation. Sometimes, the stories we work on start with the data, and are then enhanced with case studies and interviews. On other occasions, we start with a real-life problem and data puts the story into a broader context and offers a more in-depth analysis. In data-driven pieces, numbers and human voices are always complementary elements. The numbers by themselves never give the full picture”. Anna explains it’s a real team effort: “we always collaborate with other specialist reporters, but also with graphic designers and developers. Together, we put together the words and the visuals that go with them, such as infographics and interactive diagrams. You never feel completely alone, even though the editorial team is huge”.
Other stories: another way of narrating the pandemic
With the pandemic, Anna’s work has become even more urgent, visible and necessary: “During this emergency, the task of the data journalist has been and remains to question and analyse all the statistics we are inundated with every day. We have to identify the reliable sources, filter out the important information from the background noise, and offer the readers tools they can use to navigate the complexity of this situation. Journalists (including data reporters) need to go beyond the statistics on contagion, victims and vaccine rates, and try to describe this terrible time from another point of view”. Early on, Anna explains, it was just about reporting on the daily stats, rather like a war bulletin. Then “we started looking for other ways of describing the emergency, other stories that would better resonate with our readers. The focus is storytelling on the one hand, and accuracy on the other. These are both essential elements of our work”. To give an example: “we looked at how food bank donations had collapsed during the first few weeks of the lockdown. We gathered data from every food bank, including their locations and the products they were most in need of. Our readers could then look for their nearest one and donate food themselves if they wished to”.
Anna also worked on a story about the UK’s most isolated communities, who were almost unaware of the lockdown imposed on the rest of the country. “Starting with the data on demographic distribution and road connections, I identified a few particularly isolated areas. A reporter then visited them to find more personal stories”. Anna’s piece on the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship that early on in the pandemic had the highest number of Covid cases after China, gives us a better insight into her approach to investigative reporting. “We were asked to put together some graphics for an in-depth article on how the virus spread on board. Apart from the number of Covid cases over time, we wanted to illustrate the ship’s entire journey, from the port at Singapore where it set sail on 6 January, to the port at Yokohama where it was placed under quarantine on 3 February. We could have simply listed the various ports the ship docked at, and linked them up with a dotted line. But as we had a few days to work on the story, I decided to contact a firm that collects and distributes satellite data. They gave me hour-by-hour data on the Diamond Princess, and that allowed me to track the ship’s route with great precision. Our readers might not have noticed the difference compared to a simpler, more approximate illustration, but I think this type of quality information does pay off in the long term”.
From physics to journalism
Data journalism has a sort of scientific approach to reporting that brings together different aspects of Anna’s background: a scientist by training, she is now a journalist who tells stories with and through data. The path she has followed is anything but linear.
“After finishing my PhD in experimental physics I’ve extended my research in the field of nanophotonics and plasmonics at the University of Cambridge, where I kept studying light-matter interaction at the nanoscale, working on single-molecule plasmonic sensors”, she explains. “After three years, I started questioning my future in academia. I was feeling an academic career wouldn’t suit me in the long term and I was curious to move beyond my original field of expertise”. Like Ulysses in pursuit of “virtute e canoscenza”, Anna’s boat took her into uncharted waters. “The Master’s at SISSA seemed like a good opportunity to look at science from a different perspective. In Trieste, I found a whole host of possibilities in science communication that I was previously unaware of. I first learned about data journalism and visual storytelling during one of the courses I attended, and I immediately got interested in the topic”. Anna’s job at The Times came soon after she had finished her Master’s, following an experience at the “Abdus Salam” Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste: “I replied to a job opening online. I wasn’t expecting much out of it, but I decided to give it a go anyway. I first got selected to carry out a practical test. It consisted of choosing a news story, collecting data to better contextualise it and creating some visuals to help communicate them effectively. After that came the interview process at the newspaper’s London office, a volley of rapid-fire questions. It was really intense, but I will never forget the thrill of entering the newsroom for the first time”.
“There’s always something to discover…”
The career switch has not quelled Anna’s thirst for investigation, analysis and exploration, as she continues to hunt down little details that are just waiting for someone to pick them up: “In my investigative work I often work with open data provided by various institutions. They can contain real treasure troves of information and they are free and accessible to everyone. It’s really exciting when you spot something no one else has noticed before.” An analysis of public health data back in 2019, for example, triggered an investigation into the shortage of GPs in some parts of the UK.
Sometimes “when I dig into a dataset, I might not find the answer to my original question. Or the data might contradict our original hypothesis and the story seems to fall apart. But each time, new questions come up. Fresh details emerge, the piece evolves and we start considering new angles. It’s rather like research work: you have to be ready to challenge your assumptions and change direction if new elements come into play”.
Quality journalism and science share many values: rigour, scepticism, transparency about your analysis and methodology. “If you ask me to explain the difference between producing a graphic for a scientific paper or for a daily newspaper like The Times, I will tell you that in both cases it’s all about the quality of the data you use, the accuracy of the visuals, the attention to details like units of measurement and scale: these are all fundamentals I’ve learned during my research journey and I always carry them with me. There is one subtle difference, and it’s related to the extent the design and aesthetic of a chart is valued”.
A graphic has to be self-explaining (even in a scientific paper)
As Anna explains, a graphic for a scientific article “is aimed at specialised researchers in your field, so you often think you can take certain things for granted. For a scientist, the value of a graphic lies in the data it shows, which is often the result of months of work. Less attention is paid to other details such as ease of reading, clarity and accessibility. You think the data will speak for themselves and, if not, the paper will explain all the missing details. Working for a daily newspaper, we need to consider we are speaking to the broadest, most diverse audience possible. The tricky part is making your graphic or visual easy to read, for everyone. That doesn’t mean oversimplifying or dumbing down the content, obviously. What’s essential is to tell a story, choose a good title, a key, and colours that everyone can read and understand. You also need to add notes and comments so that our charts become self-explaining, as they are often shared on social media without the original article to explain the context”.
This has shifted Anna’s perspective: “It was a new approach for me. I never paid too much attention to these design elements as a researcher. But they are key, they are not just cosmetic embellishments, they are a way of communicating as clearly and effectively as possible to your audience. I think this is an aspect specialised scientific papers could improve on and, in doing so, they would make science more accessible and open”.
The only journalism is quality journalism
In the parallel between these two worlds, journalism can also learn something from science. “Again, the terrible experience of Covid-19 has taught us how important it is to have access to quality information. I’m not just talking about data journalism, although the pandemic will perhaps help it to reach countries like Italy, where this type of reporting is still little known. Information is a service to the public and the community. That’s why it has to be done well: very well, in fact”.
Scientific research involves constant checking and verification of assumptions and of information. It takes time. Anna Lombardi thinks this should also apply to the media. “Real journalism, quality reporting, is based on the same principles. Unverified information is not information. Every number, every word, every statement has to be painstakingly checked. Here at The Times, an article is reviewed by at least another three people apart from the authors, before it is published. Of course, a few mistakes are inevitably going to slip through the fine tooth comb of this process, but a great many will be avoided”.
In the world of mass media, there is no shortage of problems. One of these is the economic viability of newspaper firms. The process of producing news based on strict discipline, investigation and constant checking is an onerous one.
“Obviously it’s a question of cost, and many publications cannot afford it. For many papers, the bulk of their revenue now comes from online customs. But subscriber numbers are still very low, and it seems that the subscription model is struggling to take off. We should all ask ourselves: if we are willing to pay (sometimes handsomely) to listen to streamed music and on-demand TV, why are we not as willing to pay to read good journalism? Thirty years ago, nobody thought twice about buying a newspaper from a newsagent. With digital, everything is given for granted and it might look as though everything should come for free, but the cost of putting together a paper is still the same. Just as it was thirty years ago, costs do not come so much from the printed paper itself, but from the silent work of the editorial team behind the scenes.”
In a world that demands almost instant updates, speed is another problem newspapers need to tackle. “To sense check your work, verify your sources and question your data takes time. Do we really need a constant flow of information that we often struggle to make sense of? We, as journalists, need to think about this aspect, and find the right balance between information and deeper investigation. What we lose in terms of immediacy we will gain in terms of trust and authority. We will obtain something that is less frenzied, but indisputably more accurate and reliable and, most importantly, more useful. Good journalism not only keeps us informed, it helps us to understand the complexity of certain issues. It helps us to ask questions. It gives voice to our concerns and has an essential role in society. Today, more than ever, we have an urgent need for trusted voices who can rise up out of the background noise and help us make sense of the world around us”.
