When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman rises to present the 2024 Budget on February 1, 2023, I will have spent six years as a data journalist Hindu, In my early days, when I was learning the tricks of the trade, data was used in print newsrooms across India in a very different way from the way it is used today.
Thereafter, data graphics were taken up depending on the availability of space. The expectation was to visualize the data provided by the reporter, and fit it within a small rectangle. It was less about adding value to the story and more about succinctly capturing the essence of the news item. nothing more nothing less.
Anything related to data was approached with caution in most newsrooms. There were many taboos. A graph using a log scale was plotted. A chart with two vertical axes was anathema. Scatter plots – or fondly called inkblot charts by some – were rarely used, hidden away in the opinion pages. Line charts with more than three lines were passed reluctantly. But neatly arranged bar-charts were always welcome, and pie-charts were a fan-favorite. Map of a tree, no path.
Effectively, a data visualization was simply a view. And the data person’s job was to make sure the visuals looked beautiful, were easy to understand, and relieved the reader’s eyes from mountains of text.
but i changed my mind Hindu Soon for two wildly different reasons. First, a recurring pocket-sized stand-alone feature called “data point” which appeared in a corner on the opinion pages. Both readers and partner newspapers were exposed to a variety of charts. Illustrations were used to convey the whole story, not just to reinforce an argument already conveyed by the text story.
Second, big-ticket days that require full-page data specials such as the Union Budget and elections. When Hindu Decided to do long-form stories every week, a full page full of charts and statistics to be welcomed by the section heads. The reason was clear- data stories Broke long-held beliefs. Hard facts gave way to cold truth because there was no bias in the data.
The first full-page data special done for Tamil Nadu pages showed that the state is perceived as relatively more progressive, but it Far behind the rest of India as far as the status of women is concerned, While anti-migrant sentiment was widespread in the state ahead of the crucial 2019 state elections, the data showed that it was much ado about nothing. While the Center attributed the hesitation to the state’s slow vaccination rate, RTI data showed it was a supply issue.
Death registration data showed that COVID-19 Deaths Counted in most states. While the main objective of the Farmer Bills was to evict the farmers from the notified markets, data shown Most were already selling to private traders. When the government said that there is no electricity due to lack of coal, the data showed that it did,
The data kept coming to the rescue and the story count and allocated size kept increasing.
Why did you do it Chembarambakkam disaster Happen? How Kerala got flooded last time, and not this year, BA.2 variant will be move to the second wave, Was Virat Kohli’s century drought An exception? was saudi arabia’s defeat of argentina The biggest shock of the World Cup so far, What is the reason behind the high prices of petrol? Data stories provided verifiable, opinion-free answers to the above questions.
The questions kept coming and the data-backed answers kept following them.
And the validation came mostly from bouquets and a few brick-and-mortar readers sent in regularly. YouTube videos that analyze Hindu Editorial for IAS preparation, started covering Data Point section. Professors from IIMs and IITs used data points as case studies for their data classes.
What began as a tiny pocket-sized feature in a corner is now six-columns wide and half a page deep. data points expanded into a video, a podcast and a newspaper in addition to its print offering. And there are no data people anymore, only data journalists.
vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in