When is data journalism not data journalism?

When it’s data driven journalism….

I’m doing lit-review at the moment (this might sound academic but it essentially consists of me yellow-highlighter-penning-the-feck out of papers and journal articles) and I came across a little loop in defining data journalism that got me thinking, thanks to Wikipedia.

Look at wikipedia’s definition for data journalism and you before you begin you’re told:

Not to be confused with Data driven journalism

Look at data driven journalism and you’re told:

Not to be confused with  Data journalism

Oh and don’t even think about confusing either of them for database journalism.

Reading the definitions there’s a hint of why. Data driven journalism is one process of the broader practice of  Data journalism. Data journalism reaches outside of journalism to encompass data science and designers.

Does that mean that I can say that if I come from the school of thought that wants to play down (or distance myself) from the idea that data journalism is about output – visualization – that I do data driven journalism? Does the difference speak to philosophical/professional position?

Just get on with it?

In one sense I don’t have a problem with the distinction – it makes a kind of sense. I’m also sure many others won’t, dismissing it with the weary sigh that prefixes * ‘what does it matter what we call it, lets just do it’. *

As an observation, I have to say it’s stuff like this that really needs nailing down if data journalism (or whatever you call it) wants to be left alone just to get on with it.

One of the research papers I’ve read (it’s a great paper btw) suggests, is that “at least part of what is considered as forming the contemporary trend of data journalism mainly operates in the realm of discourse”.  In other words the idea of data journalism is not fixed.

One reading of that is that its a developing field and in that there is bound to be an element of evolution (in the Darwinian sense). Look at the wikipedia page for Computer assisted reporting:

It has been suggested that this article be merged with Data driven journalism. (Discuss) Proposed since October 2011.

You could argue that conceptually (in the minds of those just doing it) this has already happened. The CAR page, like many others on Wikipedia, will serve as much as an archive for the term, reflecting that, at one point, it was considered coherent enough of a thing to warrant it’s own page.  USeful for me as an academic but redundant going forward.

But you could also read it as making it up as we go along – that’s not very precision is it.