This book looks at how numbers and statistics have been used to underpin quality in news reporting. In doing so, the aim is to challenge some common assumptions about how journalists engage and use statistics in their quest for quality news. It seeks to improve our understanding about the usage of data and statistics as a primary means for the construction of social reality. This is a task, in our view, that is urgent in times of ‘post-truth’ politics and the rise of ‘fake news’. In this sense, the quest to produce ‘quality’ news, which seems to require incorporating statistics and engaging with data, as laudable and straightforward as it sounds, is instead far more problematic and complex than what is often accounted for.

In the face of the continuously changing challenges of the digital age, it is difficult for quality news journalism to survive on any significant scale if a means for adequately funding it is not available. This new study, a follow-up to 2007’s The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies, includes a comparative analysis of possible alternative business models that may save the future of the quality news business across the developed, intermediate, and developing worlds. Its detailed evaluation encompasses also the different ways in which wider key issues are affecting the prospects for quality news as a core ingredient of effectively working democracies. It focuses on the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, Kenya, and selected parts of the Arab World, providing a comprehensive cross-cultural survey of different approaches to addressing these various issues. To keep the study firmly rooted in the "real world" the contributors include distinguished practitioners as well as experienced academics.

From the New York Times to Gawker, a behind-the-scenes look at how performance analytics are transforming journalism today—and how they might remake other professions tomorrow Journalists today are inundated with data about which stories attract the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares. These metrics influence what stories are written, how news is promoted, and even which journalists get hired and fired. Do metrics make journalists more accountable to the public? Or are these data tools the contemporary equivalent of a stopwatch wielded by a factory boss, worsening newsroom working conditions and journalism quality? In All the News That's Fit to Click, Caitlin Petre takes readers behind the scenes at the New York Times, Gawker, and the prominent news analytics company Chartbeat to explore how performance metrics are transforming the work of journalism. Petre describes how digital metrics are a powerful but insidious new form of managerial surveillance and discipline. Real-time analytics tools are designed to win the trust and loyalty of wary journalists by mimicking key features of addictive games, including immersive displays, instant feedback, and constantly updated “scores” and rankings. Many journalists get hooked on metrics—and pressure themselves to work ever harder to boost their numbers. Yet this is not a simple story of managerial domination. Contrary to the typical perception of metrics as inevitably disempowering, Petre shows how some journalists leverage metrics to their advantage, using them to advocate for their professional worth and autonomy. An eye-opening account of data-driven journalism, All the News That's Fit to Click is also an important preview of how the metrics revolution may transform other professions.

From the quality of the air we breathe to the national leaders we choose, data and statistics are a pervasive feature of daily life and daily news. But how do news, numbers and public opinion interact with each other – and with what impacts on society at large? Featuring an international roster of established and emerging scholars, this book is the first comprehensive collection of research into the little understood processes underpinning the uses/misuses of statistical information in journalism and their socio-psychological and political effects. Moving beyond the hype around “data journalism," News, Numbers and Public Opinion delves into a range of more latent, fundamental questions such as: · Is it true that most citizens and journalists do not have the necessary skills and resources to critically process and assess numbers? · How do/should journalists make sense of the increasingly data-driven world? · What strategies, formats and frames do journalists use to gather and represent different types of statistical data in their stories? · What are the socio-psychological and political effects of such data gathering and representation routines, formats and frames on the way people acquire knowledge and form attitudes? · What skills and resources do journalists and publics need to deal effectively with the influx of numbers into in daily work and life – and how can newsrooms and journalism schools meet that need? The book is a must-read for not only journalists, journalism and media scholars, statisticians and data scientists but also anybody interested in the interplay between journalism, statistics and society.

Working With Numbers and Statistics: A Handbook for Journalists will bolster math skills and improve math confidence for journalists at all skill levels. Authors Charles Livingston and Paul Voakes developed this resource book to improve journalistic writing and reporting, enabling journalists to: *make accurate, reliable computations, which in turn enables one to make relevant comparisons, put facts into perspective, and lend important context to stories; *recognize inaccurate presentations, whether willfully spun or just carelessly relayed; *ask appropriate questions about numerical matters; *translate complicated numbers for viewers and readers in ways they can readily understand; *understand computer-assisted reporting; and *write livelier, more precise pieces through the use of numbers. The math is presented in a journalistic context throughout, enabling readers to see how the procedures will come into play in their work. Working With Numbers and Statistics is designed as a reference work for journalism students developing their writing and reporting skills. It will also serve professionals as a useful tool to improve their understanding and use of numbers in news stories.

The publication of ""Precision Journalism"" in 1973 established a new trend in journalism--the use by reporters of social science research techniques to increase the depth and accuracy of major stories. That book was updated in 1978 but has been out print for several years. The basic principles are the same in the 1990's, but the technology has changed dramatically. ""The New Precision Journalism"" shows journalists and students of journalism how to use the new technology to analyze data and provide more precise information in easier-to-understand form. It covers the history of journalism in the scientific tradition, various elements and techniques of data analysis, the use of statistics, computers, surveys, and field experiments, database applications, how to do an election survey, and the politics of precision journalism. This is an important resource for working journalists and an indispensable text for all journalism majors.