I’m very much looking forward to an event on Data Driven Journalism in Amsterdam in late August, which will bring together representatives from various media organisations (e.g. The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Times, …) and other stakeholders for a day of talks and discussions on the role of new digital technologies in the future of journalism:

The European Journalism Centre in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam organises the first round table on data-driven journalism on 24 August in Amsterdam. The one day event brings together specialists in fields which intersect with data-driven journalism: data mining, data visualisation and multimedia storytelling to discuss the possibilities of this emerging field, examine and understand the needed tools and workflows, and spread the know-how for data-driven journalism. What can we learn from the existing projects? How can we integrate the existing tools in the journalistic workflows? What skills are needed to enter this field? These are just a few of the issues which will be addressed in this event.

In particular I’m keen to talk about with the other participants about open data, and the role journalists can play in helping to open up official information and to help present it to the public in new ways. They asked me for a quote to use for the event:

Opening up content and data produced by public bodies will enable new forms of reportage as well as a new generation of services enabling the public to participate in the news making process. New tools to analyse, represent, deliver and give context to public data are beginning to revolutionise the way we understand large and complex issues, from Hans Rosling’s analysis of flu statistics, to the Guardian MP expenses crowdsourcing tool, and to the Afghanistan Election Data project. An ecosystem of open data that anyone can reuse or contribute to will be critical for a new generation of data driven journalism to flourish.

You can find out more at:

• http://datadrivenjournalism.net/

If you’re going to be in Amsterdam, participation is free and you can register here.

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