Data Driven 2022

Introduction to this year’s Data Driven by David Weisz, director of Humber College’s StoryLab.

Watch: Land acknowledgements: uncovering an oral history of Tkaronto

Maps can reveal truths otherwise invisible to the naked eye. During the pandemic, The Local Magazine used geospatial analyses, visualizations, and field reporting to reveal deep disparities across Toronto neighbourhoods. From story-finding to storytelling, this session will discuss various ways to use maps in data journalism.

Further Reading: Tracking COVID-19 in Toronto Schools

During this presentation, Anita Li will provide an overview of how community-driven outlets are using data to better serve their audiences and address their needs. Learn about different community-driven models for newsgathering, audience engagement platforms that enable journalists to “listen” better to community members and more.

Since October 2015, Jeremy Singer-Vine has published more than 270 editions of Data Is Plural, a weekly newsletter that pointing readers to useful and curious datasets. In doing so, he has manually examined 1,500+ individual data projects across a wide range of topics, professions, and ambitions. In this session, he shares a few takeaways and suggests some data-publishing best practices worth embracing.

Further Reading: Data Is Plural

What 423,00 lines of data tell us about money, power and influence in Canada.

Further Reading: Uncharitable: As Canada’s charitable foundations grow, some of the biggest are spending less than required

This presentation will situate data privacy protections within LGBTQ2+ history, question the notion that data-producing devices improve functionality, and introduce an important theorist’s new way of thinking about what really needs protecting when we’re talking about data privacy.

Further Reading: Your Sex Toy Might Be Spying on You

A January 2022 CBC News investigation revealed thousands of reports of injuries and complications tied to breast implants had been disclosed to Health Canada by manufacturers years too late. The CBC’s senior reporter Valerie Ouellet breaks down how she and producer Sylvene Gilchrist first uncovered the data dump, the key role computer coding played in their research process and why going back to basic reporting techniques eventually helped them break the story.

Further Reading: Thousands of suspected injuries tied to breast implants revealed in manufacturer data dump, CBC analysis finds

Pinpoint is a new tool from Google’s Journalist Studio that allows you to upload, analyze, and search large sets of documents using AI and machine learning. In this session, you’ll get a tour of Pinpoint and learn how newsrooms are using it for major investigations.

Further Reading: Pinpoint