Category: Resource

Article, Resource

Data News of the Week | U.S. Gun Control Debate and the Media

There were more than four months after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, which is the deadliest mass shooting* committed by an individual of the States. As the largest gun-holding ratio (per capita) country around the world, USA has long been debating the gun control, yet, no consensus has been able to achieve. That’s also why media play a huge role in formulating the public debate and policy-making of gun control. We will discuss the two following reports by BBC (America’s gun culture in 10 charts) and The Telegraph (One mass shooting every day: Seven facts about gun violence in America) to illustrate the strengths and limitations of media coverage on the gun control.

*Mass shooting: When an attacker killed three or more victims in an indiscriminate rampage. Before 2013, the number was four. Continue reading “Data News of the Week | U.S. Gun Control Debate and the Media” →

Event, Open Lecture, Resource

Recap of SCMP infographic designers’ guest lecture in HKDI
picture 2
Marcelo Duhalde showcases his research work behind the infographics. Photo: Zhang Ruirong

The first principle of making infographics is clearness because infographics are created for sharing, said Marcelo Duhalde, an infographic designer from SCMP as well as his colleague Marco Hernandez, invited by Hong Kong Design Institute on Feb 6.

Continue reading “Recap of SCMP infographic designers’ guest lecture in HKDI” →

Article, Resource

Data News of the Week | Trump Lies and His Job Promises

It has been more than a year under Donald Trump’s administration. Trump has made a lot of groundless claims and job promises which happen arbitrarily. Some newsagents keep a record of it and visualize the frequency. To criticise the act of the president in a more grounded way, The New York Times compares the lies frequency between Trump’s and the former president Barack Obama. We also dug deeper into one of his promises in his election platform which is job creation and employment enhancement. From which, we adopted a project from ProPublica. The following will discuss the visualization, the use of words and the effects of the two projects. 

Continue reading “Data News of the Week | Trump Lies and His Job Promises” →

Resource, Story

Data News of the Week | Visualising the Blockchain

The Rise and Rise of ICO in late 2017

If you still don’t know what is “blockchain” or what is “bitcoin”, The recent work from Max Galka will assure you this is the high time to do some self-study, or you will miss the birth time of “another Internet”. The idea of ICO, Initial Coin/Chain Offering, is an analogy of IPO. With the inception of “smart contract” capability, fundraising, a process to exchange currency to certificate, can be done in a distributed manner. The “currency” in the chain world can be Ethereum, NEO, BitCoin, … The “certificate” in the chain world is called “token” so the ICO process is also referred to as “token sale”. The convenience of ICO gains rapid growth with crazy capitals pouring into this field. Just check out this interactive/ animated token sale history.

Screenshot: The ICO Market Cap to date (Nov 2017)

Continue reading “Data News of the Week | Visualising the Blockchain” →

Resource, Tutorial

My First Application of FOI in Hong Kong

It was new for me when I heard anyone can acquire almost any data from HK government for legitimate reasons under that Code on Access to Information.

This code is a response to the notion of “FOI” (For Our Information; Freedom Of Information), which calls for citizens’ free access to government information so that the transparency of government management can be ensured and citizen rights can be protected.

According to Wiki, In 2006, nearly 70 countries went through relative legislation. Among these laws are USA’s FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and, of course, Hong Kong’s Code on Access to information.

Despite the code in place, a practical question remains. Will those government officers fulfill their duty and do give reply to every single data request? So I decided to give a try on Accessinfo.hk.

Accessinfo.hk is a website positioned as a platform for citizens to post their information requests to authorities and receive feedback. It was initiated by a group of Open Data activist, including Guy Freeman, who is currently data scientist in HK01. The website publishes every question and answer to everyone, and, at the same time, monitors the process. Before localizing the Alaveteli system ( http://alaveteli.org/ ) to Hong Kong, its sister site WhatDoTheyKnow ( https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/ ) had already seen wide application in the United Kingdom.

accessinfo

Screenshot: accessinfo.hk

Continue reading “My First Application of FOI in Hong Kong” →

General, Resource, Story

Data News of the Week | US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. How does it matter to the companies and citizens?

Tax is one of the crucial parts of the country’s economic. Under the globalization, US tax policy might relevant to your life. The economic trends could affect you and the steps you might need to take so you can profit from it. Moreover, there are lots of data in the tax policies which could turn into some good data news. This week we will share some Trump’s new GOP tax cut plan data news.

What is the Tax Cuts about?

☞Trump’s Tax Plan and How It Affects You [Link]

The whole tax bill cuts the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and the top individual tax rate will drop to 37%, which used to be 39.6% in 2017.

The following chart shows the progressive tax rate before and after the bill, in one Table. We find that table is an effective way to display data with high density. It seems the tax will be deducted for everyone except for the lowest income bracket.

image1

Read more: Corporate Income Tax: Definition, History, Effective Rate

Continue reading “Data News of the Week | US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” →

Announcements, Event, Resource

Hong Kong Data Journalism Bootcamp 2018

DNNers, Happy new year!

We are pleased to announce a 3 days data journalism bootcamp at the end of January. This is an intensive training to get you onboard this fascinating battle ship in the new media ocean. You will spend a fruitful weekend with 60 students from all Hong Kong higher education institutions. The event adopts a “startup weekend” format and features hands-on experience. Friday evening will see an overview of data journalism and team formation. Teams can work at any time from Friday evening all through Sunday afternoon to finish a data journalism project. Saturday is composed of three structured workshops including data collection/ preprocessing, descriptive statistics and data visualisation. Sunday morning will see some industry practitioners/ community contributors sharing tips/ pointers to further broaden the horizon of participants. Most training sessions are optional and attendees can pickup the preferred skills as needed.

Event overview:

  • Date/Time: Jan 26 (Fri) evening to Jan 28 (Sun) afternoon
  • Venue:
    • Day 1 (Fri): Cheng Yu Tung Building (100m from MTR University Station)
    • Day 2 (Sat)/ Day 3 (Sun): Learning Garden, G/F, University Library, CUHK
  • Audience: Students in Hong Kong higher education institutions
  • Cost: FREE (with HK$ 200 deposit)

Links:

Continue reading “Hong Kong Data Journalism Bootcamp 2018” →

Opinion, Resource

Curate datasets for fun, and profit

Cover photo source: raul kalvo

The term “Curator” was traditionally used in the context of museums, library, gallery and art exhibitions. It general refers to the person who creatively plan and well organise resources to maximise the utility for the audience. The process that a curator gets the job done is thus “curate”.

TLDR readers, here are the sites that worth your visit:

Continue reading “Curate datasets for fun, and profit” →

Comment, Opinion, Resource, Tool

活用多個數據庫做企業背景調查：一篇民間調查的方法解析

原文：我猜你们一定很想了解一下红黄蓝

隨著北京紅黃藍幼兒園的虐童事件的不斷發酵，微博熱搜一度出現：「三種顏色不能上熱搜」熱門話題。中國社交媒體的兩大平台「微博」和「微信公眾號」的網絡大V們仍舊不斷在針對此次事件从不同角度發表各種文章。這次小編帶大家看看一個經常以吐槽科技公司及其產品的科技自媒體「差評君」，在第一時間發表了的一篇針對「紅黃藍幼兒園經營背景」的調查，獲得超過十萬加阅读量的微信公眾號文章。

這篇文章通過網絡公開資料，以熟練運用各種搜索工具作為主要手段，呈現了一個數據調查報道的成功案例。小編進行「逆向工程」，帶大家分析一下這篇文章中使用到的數據庫和調查手段。

Continue reading “活用多個數據庫做企業背景調查：一篇民間調查的方法解析” →

Opinion, Resource, Tool, Tutorial

Learn Spreadsheet to Mine Data and Jumpstart Your Data Journalism Career – A Sharing by Aimee Edmondson

Aimee Edmondson is now an Associate Professor with Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University. HKBU students are very lucky to have this knowledgeable and passionate speaker to talk about data journalism this afternoon. Her 12 years in reporting and later acquired statistics and technology are a fine combination for a data journalist. In the world where people are too fascinated by new technology and numerous boot camps are created by non-journalists, Aimee can be a role model for those “traditional journalists” who are moving in this direction.

Why does data matter? In Aimee’s words, you want to be a reporter, not a repeater. Data helps one to verify what the source is saying and find out what is really happening. To be pragmatic, we are seeing more and more JD requiring data analytics skills from investigative reporters. Going beyond the journalism domain, the skills trained by data journalism can well fit into corporate communication, public relation and advertising industry.

Picture: Job boards on IRE, from the slides

To start, one only needs to work on “small data”, with a spreadsheet.

Continue reading “Learn Spreadsheet to Mine Data and Jumpstart Your Data Journalism Career – A Sharing by Aimee Edmondson” →