Working with data is a completely different story for journalists (some pun intended). You do not have to talk to too many people to gather what you need. In addition to agencies that you could mail or go to in person to request information from, there are actually plenty of online services where data is available to the public such as forums, and quite a few websites. With websites you have ScraperWiki, BuzzData, and DataCouch where you can upload your data and visualize it. Even with social media there is data available to be counted. Just think about how Twitter has listed the mentions and retweets of a particular topic and hashtag. Just type in that certain word or phrase and see every user who has used it. Could be perfect for an infographic regarding celebrities or even current events. Of course another aspect of working with data would be constructing it. Unlike the written stories, there are online services devoted to having templates for infographics to use. This could come in handy for producing visualizations at a more rapid speed but making one from scratch could prove more effective in informing the audience.

1. What is the purpose of a news app and when is it best to be used?

2. How substantial is social media as a data source?

3. What’s the cons of developing an infographic online versus creating one from scratch?

4. Nate Silver used data to predict the 2012 Presidential Election by state. How soon will it be that journalists will use to data to make their own predictions about elections or other events?

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