Data journalism in television news: A case of Globo’s news programs (original) (raw)

Data journalism has emerged in the news industry as a new form of journalistically creating value from data, mainly in print and digital news media. Few studies have been conducted to understand how data journalism has been incorporated into other medium, such as radio and television. Coming from a very Western perspective, the practice has turned into a global phenomenon that cannot be fully grasped by the early adopter nations and few forms and formats. Hence, this study focuses on the practice applied to broadcast journalism in the yet still under-researched case of Brazil, a leading country within the Global South. Using TV Globo, as a case study, this paper presents an analysis through triangulated data of content analysis of the three main newscasts with semi-structured, in-depth interviews with professionals that are working with data journalism on TV Globo to get a deeper understanding of how the practice is being explored. The results show even with great number of stories using data, the visuals being used are quite simple, while their major focus is on building their datasets from data that is not fully available online or through Freedom of Information requests. Yet, the legacy systems and mindset change are some challenges that professionals have to face to incorporate data norms and routines in newsrooms.