Lisa Cornish Interview
Lisa Cornish is a data journalist with News Queensland, this interview was conducted over the phone.
Could you speak about your background in journalism, and how you came to focus on data journalism in particular?
Well my background is actually in the data side, more so than journalism. Previously I was actually working as the manager of data.gov.au which is a federal government open data portal – collecting data sets from agencies, advising the best way to format it and the best way to present it and license it, to enable people to be able to re-use it. My side is from the background of being able to analyse the information to create the stories from it. I’m working with journalists at the moment to give them the stories from the data. That’s the background that I’ve come from, completely the data side. My background is originally archaeology, strangely enough, and then I’ve come to this through geospatial mapping. I’ve also previously done work with the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, the Australian Federal Police, and even environmental projects overseas.
Where is the data obtained?
Most of the data looked at comes from government sources. For example, with things such as unemployment, you go to the likes of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to get the best information. The problem we do have in Australia is that we’ve got the three tiers of government, and if you’re looking for something such as deaths or births, you have to go to each jurisdiction. There’s nothing national like you get overseas in Europe or America. You try to get the most authoritative source, so if you’re looking for government information, then you go to the appropriate government agency, at the appropriate level. If you’re looking for industry information on, say mining or industry, you’ll contact the relevant agencies. There’s a variety of information. With data journalism you want to try to look at the raw information, going away from looking at the information in reports to try to get the original data sets that are used to try to analyse that information. You can have a look at that yourself and try to come up with your own ideas and your own interpretation, rather than just relying on what someone’s telling you the information is saying.
What is government 2.0, and what is its relation to data journalism?
In America and Europe, Government 2.0 is really about open government data and open information, whereas in Australia it’s more about social media. It’s about government engaging with the community through twitter or online consultations. It’s not necessarily about the data and the information being released. You do have changes in freedom of information legislation, which was meant to open up information, but still getting the agencies themselves to do that work and getting you that information, you end up getting quite useless information. You are seeing over in Europe, especially in England, Government 2.0 is associated with data and journalism, but not as much here in Australia.
Is data journalism a large part of the Australian journalism landscape at the moment?
No, it’s very new. It’s still learning how to use this and learning how to refocus journalism in a way to use the data as the interview subject, rather than going to someone and asking them to tell you about that information or what’s in that data, to write the article. It is very different, and also providing information in a different format that allows people to really see it, and better understand it. Rather than just presenting an article with a whole bunch of facts and figures, it may be presenting it as a map, to show the impact of say, the National Broadband Network or the Budget and where the budget promises are really going, that can make a lot more sense than just the text of information. It’s adding value to that and really allowing people to be able to interpret that information in a more user friendly way.
How much interrogation of the data is required by the reader? Is their role any different?
If it’s a part of the print stuff, then that is already done for them. The thing that can have value added now is online, and allowing tool that let people interrogate the information themselves. You can allow them to filter information over time, so if they want to see something like natural disasters that happened in a state, you could filter down the periods of time, drag out the information that is relevant to them, they can search for information that is around their suburb or postcode, or something that they understand. They could also pull out that information and try to do their own thing, such as bring in another data set and try to understand why something is happening. For example, why there are so many floods, you might be able to bring in information and understand the geography, or the landscape, or changes that have been made with buildings that might cause that. You can do that as part of journalism, but you can also allow the user the ability to play around with the information themselves as part of this new move into online media.
So online media is a big part of this?
Definitely. It’s that part that adds that little bit of extra value. With data journalism you’re looking at presenting information quickly, and that’s easy to interpret. So rather than having that whole bunch of statistics looking at people – presenting it as a graph, a table or even an inforgraphic online that quickly allows them to understand it is what you want to do. Online you want to give them as much information as possible to allow them to do whatever they want and get what information they need from it.
So what exactly is the role of the journalist in this model?
One part of the journalist’s role is getting that information together. Here in Australia, we’ve probably got more of this problem than overseas, where with the three tiers of government - local, state and federal – makes getting that information together, and it might be from different agencies, so the journalist can start the first analysis or that first interpretation of it, and then encouraging the people to look at the information themselves, come up with more information, really get nitty gritty with it to see what else they can come up with. The journalists interpretation might not be correct, because they might not necessarily be an environmental expert or a mining expert [if that is what their report is on], but it is just an interpretation of it, and that is what’s important with data journalism – the answer the journalist gives isn’t necessarily correct, it’s one interpretation of the data. There could be multiple interpretations, and depending on how you join the information with various data sets, you can come up with a completely different interpretation. It’s not incorrect; it’s just one particular view.
Is this a similar concept to the journalist as the ‘curator’?
Yes. The thing that we have overseas is that information is easily available. It doesn’t look like we’re going down that path here in Australia, that that information is going to be openly available, any of that really useful stuff. There’ll be lots of government reports, where you’ll have to pull information out, but there might be a lot of freedom of information requests to get that information that journalists might be doing. By making that information available, you’re creating resources for other journalists as well.
Do you think it’s providing a solution or part of a solution to the trust issues inherent in journalism today?
Definitely. By being able to see what they’re using and how they did the analysis – there might be faults in it, that people can understand and they might be suggesting other ways to do it. The other thing with Data Journalism is the potential to crowd source information. Rather than relying on information from government agencies, by putting out a survey or asking the public to provide information, that’s a new source of information that can then be analysed. Even looking at the comments online as to what people’s views are, that could easily be created as a data set, and reported on. That can still be considered data in this situation.
Do you think this is providing a more dialectical approach to journalism?
Absolutely. The one thing, especially if you’re going to the extremes of putting information together, making it available, allowing people to interrogate it, you want to still have that cycle going. So you update the information as available, you try to find new angles of interpreting information. You might have national information that you could come up with hundreds of different stories if you’re focusing on one state, or one city, or one suburb, as said combining different information. You definitely want to have that ongoing engagement with the public to improve the information and to find a new angle of coming up with the story.
So it helps keep the public informed and allows them to get in on a debate…
Yes. That’s the other thing with this Government 2.0 – there is all that discussion of trying to improve people’s understanding of government and things like that. It’s not happening, so the journalism aspect of it can provide that, that bridge that the government isn’t.
Do you think that this form of journalism will have a bigger role in the future than it has now?
I think data journalism will become more common. I think a lot of journalists won’t realise that they’re doing it. Information and data and reports have always been important in journalism, it’s just presenting it in new ways. That will become that new aspect. There are so many tools out there now that allows people to do that easily – things like google fusion tables. Google’s providing heaps of tools that allow you to upload information that you get access to and play around with it, create charts, filter information and even map. And there are people that are playing around with and really don’t realise that they’re doing data journalism until someone points it out. It will become more commonplace, they won’t realise it. I think you’ll see that more of the bloggers and the citizen journalists will be more likely to be saying they’re a data journalist themselves.
Do you think Australia itself is moving towards a more open journalistic environment?
I think it will be slower than what you’re seeing in Europe and America. We’ll get there, but we’ll probably be a couple of years behind what’s happening overseas. I think it’s just that easy access to information, and that grassroots of crowd sourcing information and relying on the public to provide a lot of information, which we’re not doing here in Australia. I don’t know whether it’s just the landscape, and we definitely come from a more closed society that thinks ‘This is our information, we’re holding on to it’, which is completely different in Europe and America. This may be impacting the journalism aspect as well.
Could you speak about your background in journalism, and how you came to focus on data journalism in particular?
Well my background is actually in the data side, more so than journalism. Previously I was actually working as the manager of data.gov.au which is a federal government open data portal – collecting data sets from agencies, advising the best way to format it and the best way to present it and license it, to enable people to be able to re-use it. My side is from the background of being able to analyse the information to create the stories from it. I’m working with journalists at the moment to give them the stories from the data. That’s the background that I’ve come from, completely the data side. My background is originally archaeology, strangely enough, and then I’ve come to this through geospatial mapping. I’ve also previously done work with the Country Fire Authority in Victoria, the Australian Federal Police, and even environmental projects overseas.
Where is the data obtained?
Most of the data looked at comes from government sources. For example, with things such as unemployment, you go to the likes of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to get the best information. The problem we do have in Australia is that we’ve got the three tiers of government, and if you’re looking for something such as deaths or births, you have to go to each jurisdiction. There’s nothing national like you get overseas in Europe or America. You try to get the most authoritative source, so if you’re looking for government information, then you go to the appropriate government agency, at the appropriate level. If you’re looking for industry information on, say mining or industry, you’ll contact the relevant agencies. There’s a variety of information. With data journalism you want to try to look at the raw information, going away from looking at the information in reports to try to get the original data sets that are used to try to analyse that information. You can have a look at that yourself and try to come up with your own ideas and your own interpretation, rather than just relying on what someone’s telling you the information is saying.
What is government 2.0, and what is its relation to data journalism?
In America and Europe, Government 2.0 is really about open government data and open information, whereas in Australia it’s more about social media. It’s about government engaging with the community through twitter or online consultations. It’s not necessarily about the data and the information being released. You do have changes in freedom of information legislation, which was meant to open up information, but still getting the agencies themselves to do that work and getting you that information, you end up getting quite useless information. You are seeing over in Europe, especially in England, Government 2.0 is associated with data and journalism, but not as much here in Australia.
Is data journalism a large part of the Australian journalism landscape at the moment?
No, it’s very new. It’s still learning how to use this and learning how to refocus journalism in a way to use the data as the interview subject, rather than going to someone and asking them to tell you about that information or what’s in that data, to write the article. It is very different, and also providing information in a different format that allows people to really see it, and better understand it. Rather than just presenting an article with a whole bunch of facts and figures, it may be presenting it as a map, to show the impact of say, the National Broadband Network or the Budget and where the budget promises are really going, that can make a lot more sense than just the text of information. It’s adding value to that and really allowing people to be able to interpret that information in a more user friendly way.
How much interrogation of the data is required by the reader? Is their role any different?
If it’s a part of the print stuff, then that is already done for them. The thing that can have value added now is online, and allowing tool that let people interrogate the information themselves. You can allow them to filter information over time, so if they want to see something like natural disasters that happened in a state, you could filter down the periods of time, drag out the information that is relevant to them, they can search for information that is around their suburb or postcode, or something that they understand. They could also pull out that information and try to do their own thing, such as bring in another data set and try to understand why something is happening. For example, why there are so many floods, you might be able to bring in information and understand the geography, or the landscape, or changes that have been made with buildings that might cause that. You can do that as part of journalism, but you can also allow the user the ability to play around with the information themselves as part of this new move into online media.
So online media is a big part of this?
Definitely. It’s that part that adds that little bit of extra value. With data journalism you’re looking at presenting information quickly, and that’s easy to interpret. So rather than having that whole bunch of statistics looking at people – presenting it as a graph, a table or even an inforgraphic online that quickly allows them to understand it is what you want to do. Online you want to give them as much information as possible to allow them to do whatever they want and get what information they need from it.
So what exactly is the role of the journalist in this model?
One part of the journalist’s role is getting that information together. Here in Australia, we’ve probably got more of this problem than overseas, where with the three tiers of government - local, state and federal – makes getting that information together, and it might be from different agencies, so the journalist can start the first analysis or that first interpretation of it, and then encouraging the people to look at the information themselves, come up with more information, really get nitty gritty with it to see what else they can come up with. The journalists interpretation might not be correct, because they might not necessarily be an environmental expert or a mining expert [if that is what their report is on], but it is just an interpretation of it, and that is what’s important with data journalism – the answer the journalist gives isn’t necessarily correct, it’s one interpretation of the data. There could be multiple interpretations, and depending on how you join the information with various data sets, you can come up with a completely different interpretation. It’s not incorrect; it’s just one particular view.
Is this a similar concept to the journalist as the ‘curator’?
Yes. The thing that we have overseas is that information is easily available. It doesn’t look like we’re going down that path here in Australia, that that information is going to be openly available, any of that really useful stuff. There’ll be lots of government reports, where you’ll have to pull information out, but there might be a lot of freedom of information requests to get that information that journalists might be doing. By making that information available, you’re creating resources for other journalists as well.
Do you think it’s providing a solution or part of a solution to the trust issues inherent in journalism today?
Definitely. By being able to see what they’re using and how they did the analysis – there might be faults in it, that people can understand and they might be suggesting other ways to do it. The other thing with Data Journalism is the potential to crowd source information. Rather than relying on information from government agencies, by putting out a survey or asking the public to provide information, that’s a new source of information that can then be analysed. Even looking at the comments online as to what people’s views are, that could easily be created as a data set, and reported on. That can still be considered data in this situation.
Do you think this is providing a more dialectical approach to journalism?
Absolutely. The one thing, especially if you’re going to the extremes of putting information together, making it available, allowing people to interrogate it, you want to still have that cycle going. So you update the information as available, you try to find new angles of interpreting information. You might have national information that you could come up with hundreds of different stories if you’re focusing on one state, or one city, or one suburb, as said combining different information. You definitely want to have that ongoing engagement with the public to improve the information and to find a new angle of coming up with the story.
So it helps keep the public informed and allows them to get in on a debate…
Yes. That’s the other thing with this Government 2.0 – there is all that discussion of trying to improve people’s understanding of government and things like that. It’s not happening, so the journalism aspect of it can provide that, that bridge that the government isn’t.
Do you think that this form of journalism will have a bigger role in the future than it has now?
I think data journalism will become more common. I think a lot of journalists won’t realise that they’re doing it. Information and data and reports have always been important in journalism, it’s just presenting it in new ways. That will become that new aspect. There are so many tools out there now that allows people to do that easily – things like google fusion tables. Google’s providing heaps of tools that allow you to upload information that you get access to and play around with it, create charts, filter information and even map. And there are people that are playing around with and really don’t realise that they’re doing data journalism until someone points it out. It will become more commonplace, they won’t realise it. I think you’ll see that more of the bloggers and the citizen journalists will be more likely to be saying they’re a data journalist themselves.
Do you think Australia itself is moving towards a more open journalistic environment?
I think it will be slower than what you’re seeing in Europe and America. We’ll get there, but we’ll probably be a couple of years behind what’s happening overseas. I think it’s just that easy access to information, and that grassroots of crowd sourcing information and relying on the public to provide a lot of information, which we’re not doing here in Australia. I don’t know whether it’s just the landscape, and we definitely come from a more closed society that thinks ‘This is our information, we’re holding on to it’, which is completely different in Europe and America. This may be impacting the journalism aspect as well.