One year of DaNumbers: what to expect from a data journalist?

A complex journey for a complex discipline

Dear readers, 

      The first episode of the year comes after an eventful four weeks. This month, also, I celebrate the first year of activity for this newsletter. This monthly appointment has been – so far – one of the best things I have ever done for myself. So as I think about its future steps – please answer this questionnaire – I want to sum up my conclusions from one year of newsletter writing. 

Thanks very much. 

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BRUSSELS, Belgium – I launched this newsletter right after I failed to join one of the most advanced data units in the world. This failure taught me important lessons, which I embedded in my work. That selection process’ proceedings cemented the already adamant vision that data should be used more like a social science department would do, rather than merely visualize them. Yet, my take is that this vision is not shared outside a handful of elected places globally. 

When I talk to the corporate world, for example, the impression I get is that there is very little data literacy in the non-data world (Public Affairs and PR in particular), and very little media-literacy in the data people (I can confidently claim that some data scientists never opened a newspaper during their lifetime). 

Consequently, the problem is that both fail to understand their limits and, more importantly, have a flawed vision of what data is about and what the general public expects from it. Consequently, these people do not trust that pushing the envelope providing complex stories can be a viable strategy to engage readers and the press. Such incompetence entails that corporate blogs and newspapers are often stuffed with shoddy data content. 

What I say is not some rant by some disgruntled data journalist. When I started in this business some five years ago, I began exploring a lot of stuff. I will always be grateful to Wired Italy's newsroom for giving me the space to push the limits of my data journalism, introducing tools like sentiment analysis, social media analytics, or even music analytics. The surprise to some misbelievers is that this stuff works well. 

Italy is a peculiar market when it comes to journalism. The Italian public sphere is full of distrust towards media, shallow ideas about journalism at large, plus general issues about education and data literacy, let alone basic literacy. Yet, the complex products I provide work: people read them, and sometimes they get viral. 

Sometimes I have to make some extra efforts explaining what I do, how I do it, and why. It is also true that my stuff is either useless or more akin to academic writing to some journalists. To some others, using data even amounts do debunking – whatever debunking is. 

Yet, people read my stories. And I think that more than anything, what my readers feel is that I take them by hand to show them what I see in data – not just in the charts. And, even if they disagree (it happens), they either build a counter-argument or have to shut up. 

It is not easy, but it is a possible road to follow. My ideas are why this newsletter exists: on this publication, I can provide a service while demonstrating the benefits of data-driven storytelling. 

Data prove I am right. Even if I don't fully understand my readers' demographics (fill this questionnaire to fix it), the opening rate of this newsletter is constantly above 40 percent. And readers demonstrate loyalty and appreciation, even when the quality is not top-notch (as in the December 2021 issues). 

I don't have – yet – thousands of subscribers, but preliminary data begins to prove that what I am doing here has its legitimate place in the public sphere. And DaNumbers is ready to take it.