In 2019, it will be 10 years since the launch of the Guardian Datablog, when my own particular journey into data journalism began. In the last decade, governments around the world have opened up their data, through official sites such as data.gov. Sophisticated data visualization and analysis tools such as OpenRefine and Flourish became freely available as the field went from niche to mainstream. Journalists, generally comfortable dealing in the economy of words, now appear finally to have thrown aside their fear of math and numbers.
What is new is how widespread this has become. Data journalism now belongs to the whole world — and 2019 will see that expand to the point that it will become a truly global field of work, with some newsrooms and journalists pushing the boundaries in using data to tell compelling stories.
As director of the Data Journalism Awards, I saw a record number of entries in 2018 — nearly 700 — from 57 countries, and half from small newsrooms. There were entries from India, Cuba, and the Philippines. We saw pieces that were at the edge of newsroom innovation. The winning project from a large data journalism team was Caixin in China, for instance, which has become a global leader in the field through its innovative visualizations — such as this beautiful project on high-speed rail in China.
Another example is Yudivián Almeida of Postdata.club in Cuba, who was mentioned for his “great cross-border data journalism” and his work reporting on the elections in Cuba.
Data journalism has always been about collaborating, sharing and spreading the knowledge amongst the community. This work doesn’t live in a silo — now we can learn from what these new outlets and reporters have done to teach the rest of the world. The new Data Journalism Handbook, published in its first edition since 2012 this month, reflects this new world — with chapters from authors writing about the rise of data journalism in China; how to report on social media data and how to practice the field in the Caribbean.
In 2019, data journalism will go beyond the mainstream to be a part of how journalism works everywhere.
Simon Rogers is data editor at the Google News Lab and director of the Data Journalism Awards.
Elizabeth Dunbar Local reporters reflect on what’s not important
Alexandra Borchardt Newsrooms need to build trust with their journalists, not just the audience
Jeff Chin We detox from Chartbeat
Mandy Velez Putting the social back in social media
Emma Carew Grovum The year of the loyal reader
Tamar Charney Seriously: What do you do for people?
Matthew Pressman The battle over objectivity intensifies
Zuzanna Ziomecka News leadership gets an overdue upgrade
Kate Myers Journalism continues to be bad for democracy
Ben Smith The pendulum starts to swing back
Nathalie Malinarich Video — yes, video
Kelsey Proud Journalism becomes the escape
John Garrett You can’t raise prices forever
Don Day Timewalls and other reader revenue experiments
Whitney Phillips Our information systems aren’t broken — they’re working as intended
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen A long, slow slog, with no one coming to the rescue
Kawandeep Virdee Media wants to take care of you
Nicholas Jackson More transparency around newsroom decisions
Jeremy Gilbert AI finally becomes helpful
Salem Solomon Correcting our corrections
Joshua P. Darr The nationalization of political news will accelerate
Shannon McGregor More bogus embedded tweets in our stories
Tushar Banerjee Interactive ads will be the new face of display advertising
Logan Molyneux Seeing social media for what it is
Jared Newman AI-generated fakes launch a software arms race
P. Kim Bui The misfits become the bosses
Jonathan Stray More algorithmic accountability reporting, and a lot of it will be meh
Jesse Holcomb We’ll get better at making the case for local journalism
Moreno Cruz Osório Damaged credibility and a new threat in Brazil
Renée Kaplan Our future could lie within our own organizations
Carrie Brown Advocating a healthy civic life is no journalistic crime
Kristen Muller Local news fails — in a good way
Elva Ramirez News — but make it cinematic
Rebecca Lee Sanchez We are all actors in the running rampant of political theater
Tim Carmody Unlocking the commons
Francesco Zaffarano Towards a rethinking of journalism on social media
Claire Wardle Forget deepfakes: Misinformation is showing up in our most personal online spaces
Amy King We should listen to the kids (especially on Instagram)
Darryl Holliday Let’s talk about power (yours)
Justin Kosslyn Text hits a tipping point
Mike Caulfield Ditch the media literacy cynicism and get to work
Mandy Jenkins Fight the urge to run away from social media
Stephanie Edgerly It’s time to understand the un-audience
Jim Friedlich Meet Citizen Kane 2.0
Jenée Desmond-Harris It finally sinks in that some people aren’t white
Gideon Lichfield Goodbye attention economy, we’ll miss you
Ariel Zirulnick Participation gets professional
Rachel Davis Mersey Local news goes minimalist
Nik Usher Three ways national media will further undermine trust
Julie Posetti The year of the fight back
Carl Bialik Fatigued news consumers will pay more for less news
Robin Kwong Tech shouldn’t be the only field pollinating “news nerds”
Eric Nuzum The year of the DIY podcast network
Colleen Shalby Representation becomes more than a talking point
Victor Pickard We will finally confront systemic market failure
Bill Adair Another year fighting Trump’s falsehoods
Rishad Patel A design system for responsible publishing
Dan Shanoff Bet on sports gambling
Winny de Jong Data journalism goes undercover
Jake Shapiro Podcasting is media’s slow food movement
Heather Bryant We are responsible for how we use our power
Nico Gendron Reaching Generation Z beyond the coasts
Mike Isaac The old exit doors for digital media companies are closing
Carolina Guerrero Spanish-language audio blows up
Zizi Papacharissi Old interface, say hello to the new interface
Joe Amditis Give the audience a seat at the table
Jonas Kaiser Catching up with “Neuland”
Juleyka Lantigua Podcasting battles East Coast bias
Shalabh Upadhyay A culture clash on India’s growing Internet
Tshepo Tshabalala Ahead of African elections, unlock partnerships with fact-checkers
Matt Karolian Publishers come to terms with being Facebook’s enablers
Sarah Stonbely Mapping the local news ecosystem — with scale but detail
Sue Cross Return of the water cooler
Linda Solomon Wood The year of the climate reporter
Simon Rogers Data journalism becomes a global field
Craig Newmark The end of “loudspeakers for liars”
Andrew Donohue Voting rights becomes the new climate change
Callie Schweitzer The rise of the conveners
Jack Riley Facebook refugees, from ad revenue to news habits
Peter Cunliffe-Jones The focus of misinformation debates shifts south
Jesse Brown Canada’s subsidy for news backfires
Nisha Chittal The homepage makes a comeback
Alyssa Zeisler We expand what (and how and who) we serve
Umbreen Bhatti The story doesn’t end for the people we quote
Libby Bawcombe Haikus of the news
Elizabeth Jensen Going where the Acela can’t take you
Pablo Boczkowski Reimagining the media for post-institutional times
Rachel Glickhouse Newsrooms will prioritize audience needs
Francesco Marconi The year of iterative journalism
Kyra Darnton A shift to depth in video
Laura E. Davis More access, but not that kind
Kainaz Amaria We consider who’s behind the camera
Seema Yasmin We will create our own spaces
Adam B. Ellick Video forensic reporting goes mainstream — and local
Steve Henn Smart speakers get smarter
Frank Chimero Leave the phone at home and put news on your wrist
Heba Aly The rise of international nonprofit news
Geetika Rudra The year of actionable (local) journalism
Simon Galperin After capitalism’s fire, journalism’s secondary succession
Ole Reißmann The rise of vertical storytelling
J. Siguru Wahutu Think 2018 was bad? Wait until you see 2019
Annie Rudd A more intimate aesthetic of politics — on Insta
Sarah Marshall A return to destination journalism
Renan Borelli Developing loyalty means developing your talent
LaToya Drake Listen up: New stories, new storytellers
Andrea Faye Hart Doing less harm, not just more good
Zainab Khan Publishers whose products can stand up to social media giants will win
Bill Grueskin Toward a symphony model for local news
Efrat Nechushtai Journalism wants to be your friend, not your teacher
Ståle Grut A new dawn for 3D tech in journalism
Kevin D. Grant A year to embrace journalism as public service
Adam Thomas In Europe, foundations invest in news
Borja Bergareche Sainz de los Terreros Entering a more balanced era
Matt Skibinski Quality and reliability are the new currencies for publishers
Becca Aaronson From bridge roles to product thinkers
Mario García The rise of content “pilots”
Catalina Albeanu Being responsible for what we don’t know
Peter Bale Venture capital runs out of patience
Candis Callison Learn from Indigenous journalists on covering climate change
Michael Rain The year of the culturally relevant curator
Chase Davis We can acknowledge what we don’t know
Alexandra Svokos Good luck convincing us millennials to pay
Robert Hernandez Racists and sexists get replaced
Christa Scharfenberg and Vickie Baranetsky The year of the lawsuit
Steve Grove A reckoning for tech’s work with news
Mike Rispoli and Craig Aaron Government funds local news — and that’s a good thing
Stefanie Murray Local news wakes up and starts collaborating
Heather Chaplin Agree we’re partisan — for the democratic system
John Saroff The pivot to reader revenue’s unintended consequences
Charo Henríquez Pivot to journalism
Cherian George Fake news wins in Asia
Errin Haines Say it with me: Racism
Taylor Lorenz Personal branding is more powerful than ever
Dheerja Kaur A focus on problems, not platforms
Celeste LeCompte Local news needs local conversation to survive
Angilee Shah The year news orgs say “yes” to real leaders
Lauren Katz Community becomes a core newsroom value
Seth C. Lewis The gap between journalism and research is too wide
Masuma Ahuja Make foreign coverage less foreign
Cristi Hegranes A year to invest in the security of local journalists
Marie Shanahan Newsrooms take the comments sections back from platforms
Mariana Moura Santos From pageviews to impact
Matt Waite “I went to Node.js because I wished to live deliberately”
Sue Robinson Reporters go on the offensive
Knight Foundation A year of local collaboration
Meredith Artley Huge demand for…anything but politics
Thomas Hanitzsch The rise of tribal journalism
Elite Truong What do we owe the next generation?
Rubina Madan Fillion Fighting the reality of deepfakes
Greg Emerson Power to the user
Elisabeth Goodridge Yes, they signed up — but our job’s not over
Betsy O'Donovan and Melody Kramer The most beautiful sentence in 2019 is “No.”
Alberto Cairo A year of uncertainty and confidence
Sarah Alvarez Simplify and redistribute
Jean Friedman Rudovsky Cross-newsroom collaborations strengthen communities
M. Scott Havens Time to swing for the fences
Joanne McNeil Building a digital hospice
Ben Werdmuller The platform tide is turning
Axie Navas The traffic hunt, CMS battle, and magazine identity crises loom
Ruth Palmer and Benjamin Toff From news fatigue to news avoidance
Rick Berke The year of loyalty
AX Mina The death of consensus, not the death of truth
Michael Grant More newsrooms experiment their way to success
Cindy Royal For journalism curriculum to change, its faculty needs disruption
Jonathan Gill Publishers build a common tech platform together
Pia Frey You can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis
Raney Aronson-Rath We learn “digital” doesn’t have to mean “short”
Steve Myers From trying to cover it all to covering what matters
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau A more sincere definition of “community”
Soo Oh Just showing our work isn’t enough
Frank Mungeam Tonight at 11: News, sports, and climate change
Kjerstin Thorson Time to get mad about information inequality (again)
Dave Burdick Seeing our blind spots
Johannes Klingebiel We all grow hooves
Amy Schmitz Weiss Local news isn’t where you thought it was
Rodney Gibbs A bright — and young — year for audio
A.J. Bauer The coming splintering of conservative media
Eric Ulken The year you actually start to like your CMS
Mat Yurow Content competition from the tech companies
Julia Rubin Meeting people where they are
Josh Schwartz A pullback from platforms and a focus on product
Almar Latour Reported facts, weaponized in service of action
Alexis Lloyd & Matt Boggie The year product leads media
Monique Judge Committing to the truth, calling out lies
John Biewen Podcasts keep getting better
Reyhan Harmanci Selling more stories to Hollywood
Talia Stroud Engaging people across lines of difference
Ernie Smith The year we step back from the platform
Glyn Mottershead and Martin Chorley When a tech company pulls the plug on your story
Brian Moritz The subscription-pocalypse is about to hit
Adam Smith Platforms will have to help rebuild trust in news
Millie Tran There is no magic — you’ve got this
Rebecca Searles From silos to Swiss Army knife teams
Tyler Fisher This is journalism’s do-or-die moment
Patrick Butler Measuring impact will increase audience trust
Joel Konopo Influencers become the new liberated power in Africa
Manoush Zomorodi Tech will do for information overload what it did for mindfulness
Hossein Derakhshan The news is dying, but journalism will not — and should not
Cory Bergman Journalism as a technology service
Ernst-Jan Pfauth Readers are only getting started
Jennifer Dargan You don’t build diversity through one-off training sessions