Seven Amazing Data Journalism Blogs you Should Read

Blogging is one of the oldest tricks journalists have utilized on the Web to express their opinions and ideas. Even though social networks have been strong competitors, blogs have managed to survive. Are there any good data journalism blogs on the internet? The answer is yes. Here, we give you a list of the blogs you should keep up with in the data realm.

1.   Dear Data

Each week, Stefanie and Giorgina track and measure daily activities. They take this data and think about the best way to visualize it. The two take a postcard-sized sheet of paper and draw on it. They drop the postcard in an English “postbox” or an American “mailbox” and send them to each other. The authors make hand-made visualizations, which is something rarely seen nowadays.

(Dear Date homepage)

2.   Flowing Data

Flowing data is another hand-made blog, in this case focused on the digital side of data journalism. Created by Nathan Yau, it explores “how statisticians, designers, data scientists, and others use analysis, visualization, and exploration to understand data and ourselves”.  In fact, Flowing data has a very complete list of blog recommendations. Although it was published some time ago, it is always an interesting resource to come back to. Take a look at his reviews and recommendations.

(Flowing Data homepage)

3.   The Online Journalism Blog

In  Paul Bradshaw words, “The Online Journalism Blog” publishes “comment, analysis and links covering online journalism and online news, data journalism, citizen journalism, blogging, vlogging, photoblogging, podcasts, vodcasts, interactive storytelling, publishing, Computer Assisted Reporting, User Generated Content, searching and all things internet”. It gives a very complete overview of what’s going on in the industry.

(Online Journalism Blog homepage)

4.   The Functional Art

Alberto Cairo, author of “The Functional Art,” names his blog with the same title. He publishes updates, reviews and shares some tips, tricks and advice on how to create visualizations. This a great guide to find a perfect data visualization that fits you.

(The Functional Art homepage)

5.   Data Counts

Data Counts, also known as “La data cuenta,” is a blog written by Hassel Fallas, a journalist working for La Nación (Costa Rica). She focuses on analyzing databases for in-depth research and developing news reports of public interest. In her blog, she publishes a complete collection of resources and interesting insights for data journalism.

(Data Counts homepage)

6.   The Guardian Data Blog

There are several examples of data blogs in popular media outlets. One of the oldest and probably the most well-known of them is The Guardian’s Datablog. Formerly at The Guardian, Simon Rogers created the Datablog in 2011.  It shows real examples of how one of the biggest newspapers in the world uses data as another form of journalism.  Take a look at his blog to find more data journalism examples and resources.

(The Guardian Data homepage)

7.   School of Data

Organizations like “School of Data” have their own blog where they share events, tips and interesting resources. They also publish several tutorial videos which cover many aspects of data journalism. “School of data” is an online school in which beginners can develop their data journalism skills.

(School of Data homepage)

Want more blogs? Check out the list that Datajournalistiek prepared some months ago. You can spend hours there finding out ways to be a better data journalist. Enjoy!