A Descriptive Study on Data Journalism and its Application in Indian Media Industry

The face of journalism has changed from the industry that relied on technology and information of happenings that took place overnight and is produced the next morning. Today media is all about gathering, filtering and visualizing information beyond what eyes can see. Gone are the days when ‘Nose for news’ was considered as one of the essential qualities for a journalist to report a news story. Interpretative and investigative reporting was considered as the job of senior and experienced reporters. Competition, advent of computer aided systems, interactivity and participation of audiences have changed the tradition form of news from 5 W’s and 1H to more data driven journalism. Giving a different shape to the journalistic writings which more based on data available from sources, journalist today are depending on data available from various sources like government bodies, corporate houses, reports from well know houses to develop and design stories. These stories are getting popular and accepted by the masses as they are not the normal ‘he said or she said’ stories rather they are more factual, impactful and transparent stories developed from more trusted sources. The objective of the paper is to study what data journalism is and its application in today’s mass media to develop news stories. The paper will also examine the challenges faced by mainstream journalist coming out with data driven writings and its popularity amongst the readers.