Tag Archives: election

Data journalism at the 2015 UK General Election: geeks bearing gifts

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bbc election quizThis has been the election when the geeks came in from the cold. There may be no Nate Silver-style poster boy for the genre this side of the pond – but instead, I believe we’ve finally seen the culmination of a decade of civic hacking outside the newsroom. And if anyone deserves credit for that, it is not the Guardian or the Telegraph, but MySociety, Tweetminster, and Democracy Club.

Looking back at my review of online election reporting in 2010 it’s striking how much has changed. Back then data journalism’s contribution was all about interactive presentation of results, but little else.

In the time between that election and this one, however, two things have changed within the news industry: firstly, a more code-literate workforce, including dedicated data project teams; and secondly, the rise of mobile, social media-driven consumption and, as part of that, visual journalism. Continue reading →

Join an election hackday at the BBC in Birmingham, Monday April 27

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Hacks Hackers Birmingham logo

I’m organising an election hackday at the BBC in Birmingham on Monday April 27.

The event will involve journalists from the BBC and other news websites in the Midlands – but more importantly it’s open to anyone who wants to get stuck into data related to the key issues this election.

If you want to sign up to take part you can do so here. That page also includes details on times and location.

Some more details:

  • We’ll be particularly looking at issues affecting young people, and those affecting female voters.
  • But immigration, welfare and employment, the NHS, the economy, rural issues, the environment and anything else are all options too.
  • Some teams will focus on stories, spending some of the day turning the leads they find in the data into stories with quotes and other elements.
  • Some teams will be focused on tools: from interactive maps to resources to make it easier for journalists to fact-check claims made by candidates.
  • If you can’t make the whole day but want to contribute something, let me know and we’ll see what we can do.

MPs’ CVs now available in the Democracy Club App

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democracy_club screenshot

The developers group Democracy Club have created an app which collects the CVs of candidates standing in the general election.

Democracy Club CVs is intended to help constituents get access to information on their candidates’ experience and background.

Users can also use the site to ask candidates for their CVs by sending an email or tweeting them. Continue reading →

UK general election 2010 – online journalism is ordinary

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Has online journalism become ordinary? Are the approaches starting to standardise? Little has stood out in the online journalism coverage of this election – the innovation of previous years has been replaced by consolidation.

Here are a few observations on how the media approached their online coverage: Continue reading →

UK General Election 2010 – Interactive Maps and Swingometers

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Tony Hirst takes a look at how different news websites are using interactivity to present different possibilities in the UK election. This post is cross-posted from the OUseful.Info blog:

So it seems like the General Election has been a Good Thing for the news media’s interactive developer teams… Here’s a quick round up of some of the interactives I’ve found… Continue reading →

Telegraph launches powerful election database

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The Telegraph have finally launched – in beta – the election database I’ve been waiting for since the expenses scandal broke. And it’s rather lovely.

Starting with the obvious part (skip to the next section for the really interesting bit): the database allows you to search by postcode, candidate or constituency, or to navigate by zooming, moving and clicking on a political map of the UK.

Searches take you to a page on an individual candidate or a constituency. For the former you get a biography, details on their profession and education (for instance, private or state, oxbridge, redbrick or neither), as well as email, website and Twitter page. Not only is there a link to their place in the Telegraph’s ‘Expenses Files’ – but also a link to their allowances page on Parliament.uk. Continue reading →

Telegraph launches Debate2010

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It began with some confusion, but an interested crowd filled the Telegraph’s presentation room for a pre-launch spiel on its new election application, Debate2010, last night.

Headed up by communities editor Kate Day, and in commercial partnership with Salesforce, the media group is touting the application as the first of its kind.

Telegraph deputy editor Ben Brogan said the application is an original idea with great potential.

“It will allow people to comment on issues of importance to the country in real time,” he said.

“You could call it an attempt to represent what those issues of importance are; you could call it crowd sourcing policies… or you could call it a real-time opinion poll.”

The application will allow live comments and debates on topics set editorially, but users can also suggest their own topics. The ‘hotness’ of converstaions will be monitored and will likely influence the Telegraph’s election coverage. Continue reading →

Obama’s way around mainstream media

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She was trying to make sure media (literally) used the “right” image of Barack Obama during the campaign. Jodi Williams was one of the many young brains behind Barack Obama’s media campaign.

Jodi Williams, who was part of Barack Obama's press team in the presidental campaign. (Photo: Bente Kalsnes)

I met her at the Digital News Affairs conference in Brussels to talk about the digital changes in campaigning and dealing with the media. She had no doubt that all the new digital tools made it easier for political candidates to communicate independently from mainstream media, on their own platforms. Continue reading →

US election coverage – who’s making the most of the web?

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Elections bring out the best in online journalism. News organisations have plenty of time to plan, there’s a global audience up for grabs, and the material lends itself to interactive treatment (voter opinions; candidates’ stances on various issues; statistics and databases; constant updates; personalisation).

Not only that, but the electorate is using the internet for election news more than any other medium apart from television (and here are some reasons why).

PaidContent has a good roundup of various UK editors’ views, and decides blogs, Twitter and data are the themes (more specifically, liveblogging and mapping). Continue reading →