Monthly Archives: April 2016

Top Data News of the Week: Who Will Win the April 26 Primaries?

26 Tuesday Apr 2016

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The big data is becoming more and more usual with daily news, and yet a presidential campaign is where it really comes handy. On the other side of the world, an intensive race is going on to decide who will be the next POTUS. Of course, first thing first, Democrat and Republican have to have a single candidate of their own. Five eastern states, including the key swing state of Pennsylvania will hold primaries in just few hours. So who they will pick? The Bloomberg assembled some index try to work out the winner of next key moment (find the origianl here http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-04-25/who-will-win-the-april-26-primaries-six-views-point-to-trump-and-clinton). Continue reading →

Data News in the Pulitzers

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

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by Roselyn Du

(This is a repost from Comunicar – Media Education Research Journal. Find the original here https://comunicarjournal.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/data-news-in-the-pulitzers/)

The Pulitzers are now in their centennial year. A hundred years is a long way to go. Along the way, there are milestones that are remembered. One in 2012, marked by Huffington Post. Its military correspondent David Wood won in the National Reporting category with his 10-part series “Beyond the Battlefields”. That milestone celebrates the first win for the then seven-year-old Huffington Post and evidences the Pulitzer committee’s recognition of online-only news. As the president and editor-in-chief of the “paper” Arianna Huffington commented, it was an affirmation that great journalism could thrive on the Web.

Another in 2016. Yes, freshly out yesterday. The New Yorker became the first magazine to win a Pulitzer, with Emily Nussbaum’s critical reviews. In 2015, for the first time ever, magazines were permitted to enter the awards and the New Yorker was finalisted for feature writing.

I am actually waiting for another milestone. One for data journalism. In the journalism classes I teach, I’ve always asked my students, “when do you think there will be an award category in the Pulitzer for data news?”

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一張圖讀懂喬布斯數據化妝術

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

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(This is a repost from Initiumlab.com. Find the original here http://initiumlab.com/blog/20160316-eight-myths-about-data-journalism/)

2015-10-12

Andy Shu 

喬布斯是個頂級的企業家，也是頂級的營銷家，玩起數據可視化來，也是便宜佔盡，毫不手軟。
我們選用喬布斯在2006年 Macworld 上的一張棒圖，拆解他的數據化妝術。

2006年 Macworld 上，喬布斯向觀衆展示蘋果 Mac 產品在2005年四個季度的銷量：
喬布斯展示蘋果產品銷量逐年遞增

增長勢頭很厲害啊，不過，好像有什麼不對？

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[Colloquium] How to Lie with Statistics in Data News

11 Monday Apr 2016

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It’s time for our monthly colloquium again! This Wednesday, Apr. 13th, we will have our very own Dr. Tong Tiejun, Associate Professor from Department of Mathematics talking about stats error in data news.

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Come join the event at CVA1024, Apr. 13th (Wed) 13:00,sign up starts at 12:50. All are welcome!

Statistics do not lie, but people may lie with statistics in data news. Dating back to 1954, Darrell Huff has written a book titled “How to Lie with Statistics” that presents an introduction to statistics for the general reader. Over the last sixty years, the book has sold many more copies than any other statistical text. As Huff made clear in his book, lying with statistics can be accomplished in many ways. Distorting graphics, manipulating data or using biased samples are just a few of the tried and true methods. Failing to use the correct statistical procedure or failing to check the conditions for when the selected method is appropriate can distort results as well, whether the motives of the analyst are honorable or not. Even when the statistical procedure and motives are correct, bad data can produce results that have no validity at all. Continue reading →

Top data news of the week: The Panama Papers

08 Friday Apr 2016

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The most explosive news of last week may be the publishing of Panama Papers. It first starts with one of the biggest secrecy leaks in the history, including 11.5 million confidential documents linked with 214,000 offshore companies in Mossack Fonseca, obtained by a Germany Paper Süddeutsche Zeitung from an anonymous source in 2015. They then worked with International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which distributed documents for investigation and analysis to some 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in more than eighty countries. It took them a year to draw a worldwide picture of “politicians, criminals and the rogue industry that hides their cash”.  Continue reading →