Basic Journalism Tactics
Lesson 17 from: Data Storytelling: Deliver Insights via Compelling StoriesBill Shander
Basic Journalism Tactics
Lesson 17 from: Data Storytelling: Deliver Insights via Compelling StoriesBill Shander
Lessons
Introduction
1Class Introduction
03:29 2Do The Exercises
00:37 3Communication Challenges and Solutions
05:20 4Exercise: 4X4 Model
04:31 5Exercise Solution: 4X4 Model
03:25 6Introduction - Quiz
Thinking Like a Communicator
The Power of Story
06:48 8Six Ways to Tap Into Your Inner Storyteller
12:32 9The Importance of Understanding Your Audience
03:42 10How to Understand Your Audience
04:35 11How to Embrace Emotion (to review)
04:38 12How to Tap Into Your Inherent Creativity
05:55 13Exercise: An Emotional Story
01:29 14Exercise Solution: An Emotional Story
01:12 15Thinking Like a Communicator - Quiz
Telling Data Stories
16Basic Data Analytics Tactics
08:54 17Basic Journalism Tactics
04:56 18Defining Your Story
05:37 19Sketching and Storyboarding
07:05 20Use Your Words
04:20 21Telling Data Stories - Quiz
Essential Design Principles
22The Power of Visuals
07:44 23How to Pick the Right Chart for Your Data
05:19 24Exercise: Chart Selection
06:27 25Exercise: Visualization
02:59 26Basic Chart Designs Principles
08:21 27Research Driven Design Principles
06:27 28Exercise: A Data Story
03:50 29Essential Design Principles - Quiz
And Now What?
30Great Data Stories for Your Inspiration
05:53 31Tips and Tricks
03:53 32How to Sell Data Storytelling Services
03:56 33A Conversation Guide for Talking to Prospects About Data Storytelling Projects
05:30 34Course Summary
02:48Final Quiz
35Final Quiz
Lesson Info
Basic Journalism Tactics
people don't think of it this way. But journalism is largely data storytelling Stories about budgets and science and sports and really a lot of other things are stories with data at their heart. This helps to explain why most of the best data storytelling is being done in newspapers and magazines these days. So as you try to improve your data storytelling, you should be looking at journalism for inspiration and you should be learning how to think and act like a journalist yourself. When I was in journalism school, I learned some great skills that made me feel like I knew what I was doing to a small degree, literally on my first day I'd like to share these journalism one on 1 basics with you. The first thing you need to know is that a journalistic story can really be broken down into six ingredients known as the six Ws. Who, what, when, where, why and how? How is an honorary W If your story includes these ingredients, then your story is complete. That doesn't mean you can't and shouldn'...
t have more, but you can measure every story you create against this list. If you haven't addressed the how and why for instance, then you're not done. Simple idea. Right? The next thing you need to understand is that every journalism story begins with a lead. That's the opening sentence or two. Or maybe a full paragraph. The lead is the most important part of the story because much of your audience will skim your lead and move on to another story. It's what I call our water clear moment in my Four by Four model for knowledge content. Now in journalism school we were taught to cram as many of the six Ws in there as possible, right into the lead. I remember getting a lower grade on a story once because I only had five Ws in my lead. Man. That pissed me off. While this may be best practice for basic journalism. 101 I would argue strenuously against following this rule too closely. My recommendation and I think that journalism pros would mostly agree with this would be to include the who and what in your lead and the rest can come later. So that coming later. Part is key. Great stories flow. They start somewhere and flow from bit to bit. Each piece of the story naturally follows the one that precedes it. It's not a random collection of facts. It just makes sense. Think about your audience and as long as they progress along paragraph by paragraph, are they going to be confused? You want them to always be on the edge of their seat at the end of one paragraph, wondering what's coming next and the following paragraph should be a clear continuation of that prior idea or a logical movement to a new but related concept. Journalism is also meant to be a ruthlessly efficient form of writing back when journalism only appeared in print ink and paper and presses and delivery trucks were expensive and limited. Nowadays the limits are mostly your audience's attention but the effect is the same. Your best story will be the one that minces no words that delivers the information in tight prose without superfluous word junk. Now, once again, this is not a hard and fast rule because journalism really need not be fact dumps without heart and soul quite the contrary. Great journalism can be well written and compelling stuff, but it needs to be strenuously edited like all great writing, which brings me to a short list of rules to follow which essentially sums up this entire lesson. These are the four rules of writing that Ernest Hemingway learned when he was a young reporter at the Kansas City Star newspaper. The first words in their style guide. Our use short sentences, use short first paragraphs, use vigorous english, be positive, not negative. So one of the greatest american authors of all time who started as a journalist who is known for using short sentences and simple language. He used his journalistic experience to drive his entire life's work of storytelling. Now, to this definition to these rules for our purposes here I'm going to add use vigorous data. Your data driven stories must be vigorously researched, vigorously communicated, which usually means visually communicated in most cases and vigorously referenced. I learned nothing more important in all of my years of education than these journalism 101 basics, they've made me along with my thousands of hours of experience actually doing it into a much stronger writer and communicator. I strongly recommend that you seriously think about developing your journalistic instincts and skills. The return on investment will pay off in spades throughout your career beyond just data, storytelling, we have our data, we have our journalistic hat on. Up next we dive into defining our story.
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