Data is everywhere, not least in news, where a range of events are spawning real-time data sets that benefit from visualisation. How do you do it? We use a recent case study from The Times – the General Election – to show how you can put together the pieces: capture and clean a live, updating data set, merge data from different sources, and visualise them. (We also look at how to overcome some of the hurdles you might encounter on the way.) Plus, we look at ways to add editorial value to data-driven apps, and make them feel less algorithmic, and more journalistic.
Julian is a developer who became the first programmer to be hired specifically by The Times’ editorial team. He works with Jonathan Richards on data and visualisation projects.
Jonathan has worked as a news reporter, feature writer, and technology correspondent at The Times. In the past 18 months, he has been learning to program, and now works in the Times’ data team.