I think one of the most interesting and useful aspects about data journalism is how interactive it can be. I think people have this idea that it is all just numbers and boring. But a reoccurring theme through these articles was how data journalism can be used to bring in traffic to their site. BBC talked about how people shared links through Facebook because people could find “their number” in the population. And one article talked about using SEOs to produce viral apps. These data journalism projects are typically always visual and a lot of times even let people interact with the app and “find their story” within it. I think that the more computer scientists and coders get involved in the newsroom, the more seamless the interactivity of the consumer and the news will be.

My question is how long does it take to get there? And in what ways can we increase interactivity as journalists? It can be easier for print journalists who publish on the web. It is much easier to get a consumer to use a data journalism app you have created when they are already on their computer and your website. It is much harder as a broadcaster to get your audience to do that. When you’re on TV you can tell them to go to your website, but there is no way to ensure that. Right now interactivity is much more intuitive for print and online journalists, not as much when you are on TV. As someone who is focused more on broadcast I am curious as to how I can utilize data journalism in an interactive way for my audiences.

This brings me to the thought that one day it truly is all going to be brought together. The separation between print and TV is fading due to the internet. Multimedia journalists are the future of the newsroom. Journalists need to be able to write their own article, produce their own packages, preform on camera, and then be able to bring their story back and edit it in a way that it can be consumed through many different mediums. Data brings in a whole new aspect of multimedia for the 21st century journalist. As I mentioned before, data is another tool for journalists and I think these articles brought that up in an interesting way. With the help of coders and computer scientists, journalists can become even more dynamic. Journalists might not know how to hack, code, or create an interactive app. But they should know how to sort through data. If they can sort through it and understand it then they will know how to ask questions and how to work with the computer scientists in the newsroom. It can be a relationship that sharpens and advances both parties. The internet is what brought this relationship into existence and as the world integrates the internet even more into everyday life, it will be interesting to see how this relationship becomes more necessary in the newsroom.