Experiences of data journalism team work collected from interviews of Helsingin Sanomat Open Hackathon participants. Presented at Open Knowledge Festival, Helsinki Sept. 2012

1. HS Open Hackathon:
Expert Teams Pitching in Open Data
DESIGNERS
JOURNALISTS
CODERS

2. 1. HS Open -concept
• Big media house invites and provides facilities
– The biggest Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat invites people,
offers working space and food
• Collaboration
– In every team there is at least one coder, journalist and a designer
• Interesting new data
– Raw data is published in easy-to-use format before the event
• One day of intense work
– The goal for each group is to make an News Application that tells a
visual story
• Best News Apps will be developed further and published
– Some of the best applications have been bought and published by
Helsingin Sanomat

3. 2. Data journalism interests also
non-journalists
Image: Google Insight ”computer assisted reporting (red)
vs. data journalism (blue)

4. 3. Who and Why
• Teams of three: journalist, coder and designer
– Journalists: asking questions, sometimes coordinating, finding
the scoop
– Coders: knowing the tools, skills for building new ones,
enthusiasm, hobby-mentality, ”know how to talk ’computer’”
– Designers: visualisation, skills for graphic journalism, last one
to step in the process, finalising the app
• Motivations:
learning tools, understanding data journalism & open data,
getting new ideas, networking / working with people one
knows, employer asked to participate, interested in data
available / outcomes, societal influence, ”a hobby”, it’s fun
and interesting, via networking new side projects, business
contacts

5. 4. Examples

6. 5. Team Work: possibilities
• Learning from each other, seeing how others do their work
• Not everyone has to know everything – and only few do!
• Thinking outside the box
• Solutions created by the others usable later on
• Collaboration, developing a working culture
• Community spirit, meeting people, further ideas in ”open
bar” session
• Teams of three:
– ”Enough people for brainstorming and not too much for
making decisions.” (coder)
– ”Could be more team members, the number needs not
to be carved in stone” (designer)

7. 6. Team Work: challenges
• Time as a scarce resource
– Dividing the work so that everyone has enough – but not too
much work
– Brainstorming & planning phases short -> reflects to outcomes
– Outcomes unfinished
• Quality of data
– Dimensions for ”a good data”: usable (in proper format),
interesting, new, comprehensive
• Technology comes first, less attention for journalistic story-
telling
• Too much ambitions in the beginning of the team work
• Work processes follow each other -> not all the team
members working simultaneously

8. 7. HS Open: value for Finnish Data Journalism
• Openness enables sharing knowledge between media houses
• HS Open as a known model of doing DJ: ”an example for other
media houses”
– Leading role: ”I expect Helsingin Sanomat to take the similar role [in doing
datajournalism in Finland] than The Guardian.” (journalist)
• Further developments?
– More open data! (from government but also from media &
other business)
– Open data and data journalism walk hand in hand
– Need for up to date legislation
– How to sell data journalism for media users?
• Changing journalism: data journalism a part of that change
• Data journalism done by journalists: The ethics of journalism and
the professional ethical code in using the data
• More visibility for open data -> more transparency in the society

9. 8. HS Open Data Journalism
Hackathon @OKfest

10. 9. Quotes for discussion
• ”It is a loss for the society if the data collected is not used.”
• ”This is the first wave of developing Finnish data journalism.”
• ”There are not so many of us who know how to do it: there is
more work for freelancers in data journalism than on other areas
of journalism.”
• ”Data journalism is a cost-effective method for doing journalism,
it provides possibilities for small media.”
• ”To understand data journalism one has to understand data and
technology. For journalists it is difficult to jump in believing that
the concept will work. And for coders it is just technology they
already know, and they just want to deliver apps for people to
use.”
• ”It is good that the leading commercial media is doing this:
Helsingin Sanomat has enough journalistic integrity to do data
journalism.”