The Guardian's George Arnett gives us an insight into the developing industry of data journalism and explains the skills you need for the job
If you work well with numbers and enjoying finding stories in sets of facts and figures, then a career in data journalism might just be for you.
George Arnett works on the Guardian's data team along with three other journalists, writing research-intensive stories based on complex datasets and assisting other journalists who are working on specific issues.
"We write data stories on everything, from comic book characters to politics," said Arnett.
He explained that journalists working with data must be extremely rigorous and thorough, with an ability to 'clean' data using Excel and decipher what the story is in a particular dataset.
Like any source, data should be treated with scepticism and reporters should be conscious to portray any limitations that the figures might have in order to not mislead the audience.
"Data is something you have to query, and look at the merits and the downsides of it," he said.
"You very much have to include the statistical limitations of any material you are working with, without lessening the impact of your journalism."
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