This session is part of the 10-week seminar series, Data, Technology and Innovation in Government, led by Nick Sinai. Seminars are for students only (graduate and undergraduate) and are not-for-credit. Please register below to reserve your space.
Guest: Alex Howard, editor at E Pluribus Unum, columnist for TechRepublic.
Description: Data journalism is a hot topic—with a number of data visualization and data-savvy news teams having been established at major media organizations. Open government data can help tell the important stories of our time (see this recent NPR story on over-sedating our seniors — made possible by data from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services). The 2013 government release of hospital charges of Medicare was featured by The New York Times, “Hospital billing data varies wildly, government data shows,” and was celebrated by Jon Stewart in his bi-annual competency round-up — where he also highlighted Steve Brill’s excellent TIME cover article on high hospital bills. What are the prospects for data journalism? How is data journalism impacting public policy? What is the role of open source data analysis and visualization tools?
Time: Wednesday, March 25, 2015, 4:00pm-5:30pm
Location: Harvard Kennedy School, Taubman Building Room 102, Women and Public Policy Program Cason Conference Room
Workshop Materials
Download the presentation slides (PDF).
Suggested Reading/Viewing
- E Pluribus Unum: On data journalism, democracy, open government and press freedom
- Beyond Transparency: A Journalist’s Take on Open Data
- com: How the Global Open Data Movement is Transforming Journalism
- Video: Quantifying Journalism: Metrics, Data, and Computation by Alex Howard
- Video: Stanford’s Journalism in the Age of Data
- World Economic Forum: How data journalism can improve the world
- The International Journalism Festival is happening 4/15-19 in Perugia, Italy. Check out the program and speakers.
- A few examples of how open government data is helping to tell the important stories of our time
